Harry Potter and The White Witch!
by Storyseeker
Summary: Jadis escapes Aslan and Narnia by fleeing to a new world; unfortunately for Harry Potter and Wizarding Britain, it's their world! With her she brings a new nightmare for the wizarding world! (Co-written with Aesop and based on his Strange Days saga fic, 'A Fresh Start and a New Problem'. (Narnia/Harry Potter crossover!))
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic is based on one of the many short stories published by Aesop in his great 'Strange Days' saga! **

**Many thanks to Aesop for his help in co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

OOOOOOOOOO

**Narnia; Battle of Beruna: **

Things were not going at all as Jadis had planned. Her army was struggling; the troops the human children had managed to rally were surprisingly tenacious, her wand was lost, and the Pevensies were doing a surprisingly good job of inspiring their forces.

To make matters worse, Aslan had just arrived on the scene! He had somehow cheated death, and he looked very angry. Most of her troops that saw him had one of two reactions; they froze in blind panic or fled in a sheer terror.

No, she thought, as the beast bore down on her, things were not going at all as planned.

A roar from a boulder above her was all the warning she had received. When she saw the beast leap for her, with its jaws agape and claws bared, Jadis, the White Witch, did something she never believed she would do. She fled.

Until the arrival of the four cursed children, Jadis had been making plans. Not content with Narnia, she wished to extend her domain and her power. The lands to the south held some appeal, but the desert kingdom was under the sway of one whose power, for the moment, exceeded her own. Even she would need to proceed with caution there. Plus, she knew she couldn't risk going to a land filled with the creatures that were destined to bring about her downfall.

But, with an eager eye towards gaining more power, Jadis had been looking into alternate ways to conquer other places. She knew first-hand of the existence of other worlds, as she was direct proof of that, coming from one herself. She planned to one day explore and eventually conquer other realities, and as such had been working on a way to cross over into one. However, her mechanism was experimental at best, and she hadn't had time to even test it.

In the moment, though, that Aslan leaped at her, she saw her death in his eyes, and, as much as it galled her to do so, she retreated by the only means available to her. Grasping the amulet she had spent months creating, she poured her magic into it, and the world vanished in a kaleidoscope of colour, sound and sensation.

OOOOOOOOOO

Jadis, the former Queen of Narnia, awoke in a graveyard. It was not what she would have preferred, but she was alive and well, and away from the wretched beast that had been intent on tearing her apart.

She began to take stock of her surroundings. The graveyard was empty of life in the middle of the night, but there was a manor house nearby. The place was imposing if somewhat dilapidated, as a single light shone in a window on the upper floor.

Feeling something prickling at her awareness, she closed her eyes and focused on her magical senses. The place reeked of dark magic, and a number of very nasty defences, some of which she didn't recognize and could not divine the purpose of, were in place around the manor and the graveyard itself. It was sheer luck that she had not tripped one of them.

This development, as potentially dangerous as it was, intrigued her. Many years ago, she had visited what she suspected to be the home world of the Pevensie children. It had been almost utterly without magic, and her powerful curses had been mocked as poor pronunciation. Finding that this world had magic was a relief, but it did not offset the next unpleasant surprise.

The amulet that she had put so much hard work into was now a blackened, useless lump of metal and cracked crystal in her hand. The trip, it seemed, had not only exhausted it, but also ruined it beyond repair.

With a snarl of frustration, she closed her fist, crushing it into fragments, and dropping it to the ground. Jadis decided it was best to withdraw quietly from the area. Her magic was, for the moment, exhausted, and she was in the territory of a magic user of unknown abilities and intentions. The only thing she knew, based on the defences, was that whoever it was valued their privacy.

Those defences were less than subtle, at least to one with her mystical training, but whoever had erected them did not want for power. This one might prove a problem in the future, but it was a problem for another day, she decided, and made her way cautiously out of the graveyard, carefully circumventing the sorcerer's traps.

OOOOOOOOOO

The nearby village had provided a wealth of information, as well as surprises. From what she had discovered, it seemed that she actually was on the human world, except this one had far greater magic in it. This confused her greatly, as the human world she originally visited had had almost no magic, yet this one did?

Was it possible she had been mistaken upon her first visit there? No, she had felt practically no magic at all during her arrival on the first human world, but in this one she could sense it in abundance. Her first thought was that the people here were a species that were not human at all, but something uncannily similar. However, after observing them more closely, she learned they were indeed human.

In the end, she decided not to dwell on it for the time being. For now, she had escaped Aslan, and was in a world where her magic could work. That was all she needed to know.

There was no one in the village that was trained in magic, but she was able to acquire suitable clothing (since she noticed her own attire was very different from human clothing, and would attract too much attention), supplies and transportation. The language, spoken and written, was no obstacle, as she understood them perfectly. The people were more advanced than the Narnians, as evidenced by the self-propelled carriage she rode in.

The information she gained about the world she now found herself in was also priceless. There were all manner of wonders to study and learn about. There was, however, no mention of magic. It seemed she would need to find another magic user to question about that.

The trip to the capitol of the nation she found herself in took a few hours. That was sufficient time for her to make a plan, based on what she had learned. Her unwilling chauffer was left with enough awareness of his situation to make the trip safely. The spell ensured that he believed the trip to be his idea, and he was barely aware of his passenger. She would have preferred willing servants, but that would come in time, as those who sought power turned to her for leadership.

The city itself was mildly impressive, though nothing like the capitol city of her home world. The buildings were strange, and lacked any aesthetic sense, but they were well built. The streets bustled with people, and she wondered if there were more in this single city than there had been in the whole of Narnia.

Some of the sights she noticed upon her arrival there were familiar. She remembered some she had seen on her first visit to the human world, and recognised them here. One was a large square in the city, where there was a massive pillar in the centre; surrounded by four huge, stone lions (she made a mental note to destroy them the first chance she got). That seemed to confirm that this was indeed the same world she had been to originally, but she remembered nothing of the current buildings, and the people seemed very different from what she recalled, judging by their fashion and speech.

If this was the same human world she had been to before, then it had been through some significant changes since her last visit that had nothing to do with the presence of magic.

That was her first step, she reminded herself after getting out of the car and leaving the driver to wonder what he was doing there, to learn about this new world's magic.

She closed her eyes and focused her senses. Someone nearby was working a spell. Focusing on that feeling, she turned right and followed a man walking down the street. He was dressed very differently than everyone else in sight, wearing odd robes in an atrocious colour. Other pedestrians didn't seem to notice, which confused her until she almost lost sight of him. He hadn't turned a corner or been blocked from sight by other people, he simply seemed to slip from her awareness momentarily, until she again focused on his magic. He was using it to keep people from noticing him.

Intriguing, she thought. The spell allowed him to go almost unnoticed by those around him while keeping him safe from random collisions. Those around him could see him, but paid just enough attention not to walk into him. It was an inventive, if frivolous, use of magic.

She followed the man to a tavern that had a similar, permanent spell in place on the door, and she followed him in without hesitation.

OOOOOOOOOO

These magic users, she decided, were the laziest people she had ever encountered.

Jadis had, at first, thought the man she followed to be an eccentric, but soon learned that it was a societal problem. She had seen people call objects to themselves from across a room instead of getting up and walking to them. She had seen fires started with a wave of a wand, and even seen a person stirring his drink with magic. It was disgusting!

Focusing on the magic itself calmed her ire, somewhat. From the tavern, she had discovered a secret entrance to a whole street of stores filled with magical items for sale. She acquired books on history, various spells and a new wand, after she had acquired some local currency from an absurdly dressed witch in the street, her multi-colour robes were an eyesore, and Jadis chose her for no better reason. A slight variation on the spell that she had used on her unwilling driver had the woman handing over her rather heavy purse and wandering off with no memory of where she lost it.

The wand she acquired was poor quality compared to the one she'd lost to Edmund Pevensie, but it would suffice as a focus until she could construct a proper one.

It was the history she found most useful and interesting. The fact that a single powerful sorcerer could come so close to overthrowing a government either said a great deal about that sorcerer's power, or a great deal about the government's incompetence.

Perhaps both, she allowed, after finishing the last history text she had acquired. Adjusting to their style of magic wasn't difficult. In a way, it was quite limited compared to what she had trained herself in. There were many, often pointless she thought, variations, but the principles were the same.

Useful information of another sort would come from a former servant of the failed sorcerer. Despite what the general public believed, he still lived and was planning on making another try. She had chosen her target carefully. He was isolated at the moment and vulnerable. While at his master's beck and call, he wasn't likely to be summoned in the short time it would take to break him. The man's home had a few defences, but nothing like the manor house.

Gaining entry and overpowering him wasn't a challenge. She used the stunning spell the locals were so fond of, and then bound him to the chair she had found him sitting in. While she waited for him to regain consciousness, she examined the magic binding him to his master, and realized that getting him to talk would be a little more involved than anticipated.

Before she began, she had to shield him from the effects of the spells that would punish him for betrayal. She could pick those spells apart in time, but the man's master would notice that. When she was ready, she slapped him hard across the face.

Twenty frustrating minutes later, she backed away from him to regain control of her temper. He was shivering with fatigue and pain, but nothing permanent or even long-term had been done to him. "Your loyalty is commendable," she told him after a moment, "but futile. I will have your master's secrets."

"Never," he snarled. "You have no hope against his power. No pain will make me betray him."

"Commendable, but I don't need to rely on pain." She cast a single spell. It was a variation of the one she had used in Narnia to such great affect. "How do your feet feel?"

Until a moment ago, every part of him had been in pain, but suddenly, he discovered, he couldn't feel his feet. He managed to look down and saw a strange greyness creeping up his legs. "What?"

"You're turning to stone, Amycus. It won't kill you, but after a year or so like that, you'll wish it would." Her prisoner paled, but remained resolute. "You'll be a prisoner in your own body, never able to move or take any action of your own volition." She continued to whisper in his ear for a time, before saying, just as the change reached his waist, "I can stop it any time I like, but you have to give me a reason."

He talked.

Amycus had very little knowledge of the plan itself, save that, at present, the sorcerer was next to helpless and would need to undergo a complicated necromantic ritual to regain what he had lost. The first obstacle to her rule over this world was, at the moment, defenceless. She knew this, and she knew, thanks to the now petrified man, where to find him. It would be simple to kill him in his current state, but that smacked of cowardice, and after being driven from Narnia, she felt she had displayed enough of that for one lifetime.

She regarded her prisoner, considering what he had told her. After a few moments, she gave a resigned sigh and reversed the petrified spell. She could not risk any of his fellow dark sorcerers noticing his disappearance, and end up coming after her. At least, not yet. She then followed her reversal spell with a bit of magic she had learned in this new world, to alter his memory in such a way that he could not reveal her. Afterwards, she quietly withdrew, re-establishing the defensive spells she had disabled on her way in.

Her new foe's plan would not come to fruition for another month yet. His plan seemed overly dramatic and unnecessarily complicated, but she had little choice but to wait. She was determined to increase her knowledge of this world and its ways in the meantime. There was still so much magic to learn.

OOOOOOOOOO

Certain aspects and uses of magic she came to heartily detest. Some, like the transportation spells were, while efficient, an assault on one's dignity. The most common form was a literal assault while others were just silly. She hadn't yet gotten the hang of the most convenient form, which annoyed her; as virtually every other type of magic she had studied had come to her with relative ease. With a sigh of annoyance, she stepped into the opening and was almost instantly at her destination. At least this time she had managed not to fall.

The house she found herself in had been secured the day before. Three statues stood around the room, frozen in various poses. The one nearest her, a portly man with a friendly face who looked startled. The statue of the teenaged boy that sat on the sofa holding a cup of tea stared at her in dumb shock. The third, a pretty, middle-aged witch who appeared to be in the process of coming into the room from the kitchen and raising a wand, looked absolutely terrified.

Jadis ignored them all. This house was merely the closest to her target with easy access, so she made it her staging ground. All the items she needed for the night's activities were there, from three different, freshly brewed and bottled potions, to a set of special charmed items. All contingencies were covered.

With her preparations complete, she waited for sunset. If her enemy's absurdly elaborate plan worked, everything should be in place soon. His enemy was meandering his way into the trap; an agent was working frantically to make sure that that enemy had every opportunity to step into the snare. There were only a few dozen things that could go wrong.

OOOOOOOOOO

Surprisingly, there was only one hitch, which was dealt with efficiently. Just short of the appointed hour, Jadis was in position under a layer of spells to prevent anyone from detecting her.

She watched the scene unfold with some interest. She'd been wondering how the man had cheated death, but was still unsure as to his methods, though the talk he gave to his underlings was quite enlightening. Had Jadis ever deigned to roll her eyes she would have on this occasion. Why the man had felt it necessary to use a powerful curse to kill an infant was beyond her. Perhaps the fool didn't know another way to kill except by magic. On one level, this dependency on magic concerned her, and she made a promise to herself never to fall into that trap.

Inevitably, his ego got the better of him. He felt it necessary to prove himself to his followers by defeating the child in a duel.

Jadis shook her head. Had she the patience, she could simply sit back and wait for the fool's arrogance to kill him for her. The circumstances under which he lost the duel were interesting; it was yet another aspect of this world's magic for her to study. The fact that the child escaped came as no surprise at all. She watched her enemy's reaction to this development with scorn. He was practically frothing at the mouth, blaming his underlings for their incompetence while ignoring his own part in the failure.

Jadis had had enough.

"It is time to go," he said after he had calmed a bit. "We will have company within the hour."

"You have company now," Jadis said, as she dropped her concealment. The fool turned to face her. "Greetings, great lord." She kept the sarcasm out of her voice with an effort. "I am Jadis, Empress of the now dead world of Charn, and former queen to the world of beasts known as Narnia."

"What do you want?" Several wands were levelled at her, but the 'dark lord' didn't bother.

"I came to see you, of course. I witnessed your remarkable achievement and your…setback. I believe I can end your worries over that."

"You wish to enter my service?" the man sounded intrigued.

"I wish to bring order to this land, and I will see it done." She looked at the man's followers. "The task would be made easier, of course, with a ready-made army. I think I'll take yours."

"What?" he hissed, as any semblance of civility left him. He raised his wand, but froze in place before he could cast a spell. As his followers watched in shock, his skin and robes turned grey and hard.

Turning her back on the newly created statue, she addressed the people before her. "As I said, I am Jadis, and this is just a sample of my power. It is power that can be shared among those who swear loyalty to me."

"You think our lord so easily defeated?" a large, lumbering specimen stepped forward. "He has overcome death itself!"

"In point of fact," Jadis corrected him. "He hasn't. He cheated." She gestured at the statue behind her. "I had my suspicions when I heard about his recovery and witnessed his return." Moving to lay a hand on the statues' shoulder, she concentrated. "Yes. I can feel the links to the anchors he created. The fool actually carved up his soul in an effort to anchor himself to this plane, without realizing the consequences of his actions." She shook her head, looking exasperated. "Small wonder he was completely mad."

She spoke a few words in a language none recognized and what sounded horrid to even them, and then poured one of her prepared potions over the stone. There was a brief glow, and she nodded in satisfaction. "Those links are now severed."

"You expect us to believe you?" the large specimen began to move towards her with violent intentions, only to freeze in place. Like his master, his skin and clothing had changed. Jadis raised a hand and concentrated for a few seconds before closing her fist.

The statue shattered. The magic in this world was different from the force used on Narnia, and allowed her some extra strength in certain spells. She had never been able to shatter a statue back on Narnia, at least not with magic.

"Your former master I will keep as a trophy. The rest of you have the choice of swearing a binding oath to me or becoming gravel in this place. Choose now."

The former Death eaters all stood by looking unsure, until finally, one by one, they knelt before her and swore their loyalty.

While all this had been occurring, no one had noticed the large snake that was lying on the ground, near one of the gravestones. It seemed to be in a state of agitation and confusion, as though unsure of where it was. It turned its head from side to side, as though looking for something that it had lost, but no matter where it turned, it found nothing.

After a while, when Jadis and the former Death Eaters had left, it then slowly slithered away, looking for something to eat. It had no plan, no ideas, and no sentient thought other than to pursue prey, like all snakes did, as its mind was now completely void of all sentience. It was just an ordinary snake now, nothing more.

OOOOOOOOOO

There was still so much to learn. Where better to learn it than this place?

Jadis glanced around the impressive room, and smiled for the benefit of those around her. Someday, she decided, this would be her throne room. In the meantime, there was still so much to be done. The power to be found in the castle would be hers to command soon enough, and she would begin planning for the other seats of power in the land.

This new position also gave her the opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of those likely to be her most dangerous enemies. It was a position that had been remarkably easy to get. The old man seemed almost pathetically grateful that she had applied. The forged history and credentials had barely been glanced at, and she was almost annoyed that the effort had been wasted in producing something that would fool even this illustrious wizard. Of course, the fact that no one else wanted the job also factored into it.

The only other person interested had been a toad-like woman acting under orders from another. She had withdrawn after Jadis had had a quiet conversation with her, backing her persuasive words with a mild compulsion.

There had also been a moment when she had felt something prick at her mind during her interview with the headmaster. She had almost missed it, but the magic in her own blood had protected her, warning her of an intruder upon her subconscious.

Apparently, the old wizard had been trying to see into her mind, which, fortunately, had been more than a match for his. She recalled reading something of this art in this world called Legilimency. The power was similar to something that she and her ancestors had been able to do on her home world. Her great-grandfather had once looked into the minds of no less than seven hundred Nobles, before killing them all.

She had once been able to do the same thing, like all her ancestors, but she had lost the ability shortly after she had left Charn (sometimes she saw leaving Charn as her greatest mistake, as she had lost so many powers by doing that). As a result, she was a little out of practise, but, although she hadn't been able to look into the wizard's mind, she had at least been able to prevent him from looking into hers.

She thought he would have dismissed her after that, but instead he had hired her right away. Why? She could only guess; either he really was a demented old fool, or he intended to find out more about her by keeping her in his sights. Either way, she had achieved her goal and gotten the job (a new experience for her).

Jadis' musings were interrupted by the arrival of the students. The hall quickly filled with people, and she made note of the way they divided themselves with interest. In so many ways, the place was tailor-made for her. The divisiveness the system fostered would serve her well in the months to come, but that was a concern for later. At the moment, the old man was speaking. She feigned polite interest, as he welcomed the students and introduced her as Professor Jadis White, their new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

**To Be Continued…**


	2. Chapter 2

**Jadis' Heart**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

0000000000

**Two Years Later; Hogwarts:**

Jadis stood at the window in the room that had once been Dumbledore's office, looking out over the Black Lake and the miles of forest below.

Oh, how she loved this castle! In fact, she loved everything about this new world that was now hers. It was such a welcome upgrade from the one that she had been kicked out of.

She grimaced for a moment, remembering her shameful flight from Narnia. If any soldier in her army had ever dared to attempt running from battle, she would have turned them to stone on the spot. It had been a shocking display of cowardice, no question about that; highly unworthy of a daughter of the Royal House of Charn. It had been a spur of the moment thing, however, and one that had brought her great rewards.

She smiled again, gently touching the pink jewel in the ring on her finger. She did that a lot nowadays, smiling, mainly because she had rarely done it over the past thousand years, due to Aslan's curse. And she owed it all to this one little gem, which she had created in this very castle…

0000000000

_**Hogwarts; 2 Years Ago:**_

_The woman bearing the name of Professor Jadis White marched down the corridors of Hogwarts, frustration and anger clear in her steps. She had just spent another pointless lesson teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, playing the cheerful and happy teacher, and it had long since started to get to her._

_Back in Narnia, she had sometimes played the part of the kind and charming lady with the smile ever on her face, as she had done with that boy Edmund, but it had never been anything more than an act to get whomever she was dealing with on her side. She had never, nor would she ever, actually bear a joyful smile. Simply because she was literally incapable of feeling joy, thanks to Aslan!_

_Jadis ground her teeth at the mere thought of the lion's name._

_Shortly after she had first arrived in Narnia over 1000 years ago (by her reckoning of time) with those four humans (the carriage-man, the would-be magician and the two children), including that boy Digory, she had learned that Aslan intended to banish her by having the boy plant a tree that bore silver fruit, which would keep her out of Narnia as long as it bloomed. Naturally, she had sought to stop him, and, like an amateur, she had followed the boy to the Tree of Youth where he was to get one of the Silver Apples to plant._

_She had arrived there at the same time he had, and there had been a sign at the gate to the garden in which the tree grew. She couldn't recall the words, but basically it had said that whoever ate the fruit would be granted their heart's desire. However, it had also warned that should anyone steal the fruit then they would find only despair. But she had ignored it, and took the fruit from the tree._

_The moment she had eaten it she did indeed achieve her heart's greatest desire, what all her ancestors before her had wanted, but never attained. She became immortal! Her skin had turned pale white, but she would never age, and her body would live as long as the sun shone and beyond._

_But there had been a price to pay; a most terrible price that even she could not fathom. That had been the hidden message in that damn sign outside the garden! The fruit did indeed grant anyone their heart's desire, but unless Aslan offered it to them freely, then their gift would come with a dark price. In her case, she had desired to be immortal, and immortal she now was. But at the same time, the fruit had also robbed her of all her joy. She would now never know any happiness or contentment, only misery, and because she was immortal, that meant that her misery would never end._

_And as an added insult, the moment she had eaten and thrown away that blasted apple, she was then forever horrified by the mere sight of it, and couldn't stand to be anywhere near it._

_She felt like smacking herself in the head for her own stupidity. It had all been a trick! Aslan had tricked her into getting herself banished from Narnia, and he hadn't even raised a paw!_

_If she hadn't eaten the fruit in the first place then, even if Digory had planted the one in Narnia, it would have had no more effect on her than mere iron would have. Aslan must have known she would go after the boy to try and stop him, and knew that she would be enticed to take the fruit, thereby cursing herself for all eternity, and keeping her out of Narnia for nearly 900 years. She still would have been if the tree hadn't been destroyed during a harsh storm centuries later._

_Jadis bit her lip until she tasted blood. The only time whenever she had felt any kind of pleasure was in battle, during the surge of the fight and the thrill of the kill. But even then it was only temporary, and its feelings minimal. She never felt any true happiness, and hadn't given a real smile since arriving in that animal-infested world._

_She rounded the corner leading to her private quarters, when an odd smell reached her nostrils, and she paused, sniffing curiously at the air._

_What by all the Powers was that? It smelt… She didn't know what exactly, but it gave her something she hadn't felt in centuries._

_Curious, she followed the scent down another corridor until she reached Professor Snape's potions' lab. The scent was strongest there._

_Not bothering to knock, she pushed open the door and walked in. Snape was there, adding some unknown ingredients to a cauldron. He spun around at the sound of his door opening, rage in his face, clearly expecting it to be a student, only to pause when he saw her._

"_Professor White?" he said, greeting her by her alias. "What can I do for you?"_

_Jadis eyed him warily. She had learned from Voldemort's former followers, now her devoted disciples, that Snape had once served him but had abandoned him after his downfall years ago. After that, he had apparently gone to work for the enemy, though there were rumours that he had done so because the only alternative had been capture and incarceration._

_She wasn't certain of Snape's intentions or where his loyalties lay, so for now she kept her true identity a secret. No one outside of her own army even knew of Voldemort's death. True, most of the world believed he was dead, which he was, but they believed he had been dead for years. It was clear they just didn't want to admit to the possibility of his return out of fear, even their so-called leader, the bumbling idiot they had for a Minister. She found it remarkable they would put such a man in so high a position. On Charn, an opposing party would have assassinated him the very day he had first announced his intentions to run for office._

_The only ones who didn't believe Voldemort was dead were Dumbledore, the Potter boy and his comrades. If she were capable of amusement or glee, she would have laughed. The ones who thought Voldemort alive were trying to convince everyone else that he was in the hope of preparing them for his eventual return. In reality, it was the general public that knew the truth._

_But, for now, she had decided she would allow the people their rumours and conspiracies. Let the public think Voldemort dead, and this Order of The Phoenix she had been hearing about think him alive. Plotting to counter their dead enemy would keep them from paying attention to her._

"_Professor?" asked Snape again. "Is something wrong?"_

"_No, I was just walking by and smelt something. I was curious what it was?"_

"_Oh, this? It's just some Joy Potion I am brewing for class."_

"_Joy Potion?"_

"_Yes," he replied, looking at her curiously. For a teacher, this woman didn't know a great deal, he thought. "A potion that is basically happiness embodied, and gives anyone who drinks it pure joy for a limited amount of time. Nothing special."_

_Jadis stared at the bubbling elixir in deep fascination. Although the magic in this world was nowhere near as powerful as the magic of her home world, it certainly was more diverse. In this case, her world had never been able to embody certain emotions._

"_How does it work?" she asked._

_He shrugged. "You take a sip, and for a brief period of time enjoy literally everything. However, one shouldn't drink too much, as too much joy can often be a bad thing in my experience. A man once drank a whole goblet-full by mistake, and spent several weeks being happy about everything. They never got the smile off his face, even after he eventually passed away."_

_She gingerly approached the liquid, smelling its fragrance. To her, it smelt of a certain kind of flower that had bloomed on her world, which had been her favourite. She had never found another plant like it in any of the worlds she had been to._

_The closer she approached it, the stronger she could smell it, and the more she smelt it, the more it stirred a longing in her for something that she had not felt in centuries._

"_How do you make it?!" she all but demanded._

_0000000000_

_During the next two days, she acquired all the necessary ingredients to brew the potion, which she made with brewing techniques that had been commonly used on her home world. As a result, the potion had become more concentrated. When the watery excess was poured off, she found that all that remained was a small lump of pink crystal._

_She lifted the stone out of the cauldron with a pair of tongs, taking care not to touch it with her skin. She knew better than to touch a newly created item of magic without first testing it, which was why she had made preparations._

_Almost as soon as she had placed the stone to the side, a knock sounded at the door to the lab she was using._

"_Enter!" she commanded, and watched as a hard-faced girl, Pansy Parkinson, walked into the room. This girl had a reputation of being a bit spoilt and rude, something of a hard case (all traits that Jadis would have approved of once upon a time). At the moment, though, the girl was almost shivering in her shoes, as she gazed up in fear at the white-clad teacher._

_Jadis had made quite the reputation for herself, especially since her first DADA lesson. All the students, even these arrogant Slytherins, now looked upon her with cautious fear, which was just how it should be. After all, what was respect without fear? Her family had used it to rule Charn for thousands of years, keeping themselves within power during all that time._

"_Y-y-you asked to see me, P-p-professor," the pug-faced girl asked, stuttering slightly._

_Jadis resisted the urge to shout at her, telling her to stop her ridiculous stuttering, and show some strength, but after the talking down that Dumbledore had given her after her first DADA lesson, she knew she could not take that risk, as she had been fortunate enough not to be dismissed that time._

_It was just so frustrating! She knew this was an alien world, with ways different to those on her home world, but how were the children supposed to learn unless they were exposed to danger? On Charn, if she or other noble children had failed in their tests against certain creatures or in magical lessons, they would have perished, simple as that. It was the ideal way to ensure success._

"_Yes," she replied. "I wish you to help me in a test that I'm doing."_

"_What sort of test, Professor?"_

"_I will tell you in a moment. For now, please hold onto this rock for me." She indicated the pink stone on the table, and watched as Miss Parkinson obediently went to pick it up. The naïve gullibility of this child was so incredible that it was pathetic._

_The second she touched the stone, Pansy's eyes seemed to come alive, as her wide face stretched into one huge smile, and she began talking while giggling like a mad hyena._

"_Thankyouforchoosingmetohelpyouwiththis, .Oh,whatasplendiddayitis,don'tyouthinkso?" the girl spoke so quickly that Jadis couldn't understand a word she was saying._

"_Thesunisshiningsobrightly,don'tyouthink?Ithink…" Thankfully, the girl ceased her prattling. She seemed to be swaying dangerously on her feet, yet still seemed incapable of losing her smile._

"_What's wrong?!" demanded Jadis, but Pansy didn't answer, and merely fell to the floor, the smile still on her face._

_Jadis rushed to her, checking her vitals. Her pulse was quickening at a rapid pace, approaching 200 beats a minute. Way too fast for a mere human! It seemed that the sheer joy she was experiencing, due to contact with the stone, was causing her body to go mad. Her heart wouldn't be able to take much more._

_The former queen snarled below her breath, and knocked the stone out of the girl's hand. The second she did so, Pansy's face fell like a sack of stones, and what had once been an expression of pure bliss became one of inconsolable grief._

"_Wha…what…why am I…" Pansy tried to say, but tears started to pool in her eyes, and she was finding it hard to talk through the misery. This was to be expected, as the stone had given her complete and total joy, and in one second it had been ripped from her. Once one had been exposed to that type of ecstasy, all other feelings felt dull and mediocre._

_Jadis would have preferred leaving the girl as she was, feeling the need to exact some form of punishment. She had obviously made the stone too strong. However, she knew she couldn't allow the girl to die or leave, as either option would implicate her, and there was still much she had to learn from the school. Besides, her new wand had yet to be perfected._

_She was trying to recreate the wand she had had in Narnia, but the magic needed was different on this world than it had been there or on Charn, so it was taking time for her to master. It was only a matter of time before it would be completed, and it would definitely be a vast improvement over the pitiful one she was currently forced to use. She had gotten it from that wand-maker, Ollivander, and was less than pleased with the substandard product. Her new one would undoubtedly be the most powerful wand this world had ever seen._

_With a sigh, she took her temporary wand and tapped the girl's forehead. "Obliviate!" she said, and watched as the girl's eyes went dull and confused._

"_Wha…" said Pansy again. "What happened?"_

"_You came here to help me with an experiment, remember?" replied Jadis, looking at her hard. The failure of her experiment made her want to hit something, so she wanted this girl gone._

"_Did I?" she asked, the vacant look of loss still in her eyes._

"_Yes." Jadis indicated the door. "I no longer have any need for you, so you may go. Leave."_

_Still with a lost look on her face, Pansy silently walked out the room. Jadis slammed the door shut behind her._

_Fuming, she walked over to where the stone had fallen on the floor, but in her anger she forgot the risk in touching the stone and knelt down to grab it so she could dispose of it._

_The moment her hand touched the stone, Jadis felt a wave of emotions wash over and through her. Its effect was so intense that she fell to her knees and almost dropped the stone, but instead her hand closed over it in a fierce grip._

_She wasn't laughing or acting like a mad woman, as Parkinson had, but there was a definite change in her. She had just felt an emotion that she hadn't felt in over a thousand years, and had almost forgotten. The feeling was happiness, followed by a brief surge of mild contentment._

_Jadis remained where she was, sitting on the floor, taking deep breaths, as she tried to steady her rapid heartbeat. After a few minutes, the feeling of joy began to increase, as she felt it surge through her, and for the first time in a millennium Jadis gave a genuine laugh!_

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Jadis gently stroked her ring again with her finger, gazing at its soft pink light.

It hadn't been hard to figure out what had happened that day. The stone had done what it was supposed to do, creating total joy in whoever touched it. She had made it super concentrated so that its effects could last forever on her, but when Pansy Parkinson had touched it, the spell had had an adverse effect on her, nearly killing her in the process.

Jadis had made the mistake of thinking the humans equal to her, at least where their emotions were concerned, but she had been wrong.

Emotionally speaking, Pansy Parkinson was normal. She was an ordinary human girl with typical emotions, both the good and bad. When she touched the stone, it had added to her feelings of happiness, strengthening them and making them consume her like a virus. Therefore it had been no wonder that she had been laughing like a crazed idiot, acting like she was made of pure sunshine. Jadis, on the other hand, was the exact opposite.

Because of Aslan's curse, she was meant to never feel any happiness at all. She was the literal embodiment of misery and grief, while the stone was the exact opposite, the embodiment of joy. She had had no feelings of happiness for the stone's effects to add onto, thus its effects had been enough to give her the normal equivalent level of emotions.

Because of the two magics' opposite natures, the stone's joy and the curse's misery, when they were brought together in her they had cancelled each other out. Aslan's curse was broken, leaving Jadis an emotionally normal woman, so long as she wore the stone at all times.

Jadis kept staring at the stone. She had had it made into a ring the same day it had been created, so that it would be on her constantly, its spell forever feeding her the emotions she had so long been denied.

It was a plain unremarkable ring, and the stone a dull pink, yet it was by far her most treasured possession, for it gave her something she hadn't had in over a millennium…true happiness. And not only that, but it also symbolised something that was just as important… Her victory over Aslan!

Yes, Aslan had destroyed her winter, somehow cheated death on the Stone Table, defeated her at the Battle of Beruna, and frightened her into fleeing from Narnia (something she still chastised herself for), but in the end that mattered very little. She had a new kingdom to rule now, and not just a mere country, but an entire world. One with slightly more worthy creatures (humans were definitely inferior to her, both physically and magically, but at least they resembled her species more than those ridiculous talking beasts), new magics for her to master, but more importantly…she had beaten Aslan's curse, something that was meant to be impossible, yet still possess her immortality!

Jadis smiled, one of many genuine smiles that she had enjoyed in recent years, and looked out the window that overlooked the Forbidden Forest.

For the first time since achieving her immortality, she had a chance to actually enjoy it. When she had conquered Narnia, she had merely done so for revenge against Aslan and the Narnians for banishing her, but had never gained any real pleasure from her rule over them, or from torturing them with her winter, turning them into stone, or any number of things during her reign that should have brought her pleasure, or at least satisfaction.

Now, though, she had joy, and from it she gained a great deal of pleasure with her actions, and she would make certain not to waste them. In Narnia, she had just gone through each day as it came, with no real plan except to continue her rule, but never going anywhere. She hadn't been able to leave Narnia because of the prophecy involving humans, despite wanting to conquer more territory. Perhaps, she wouldn't have left anyway, since she found no real joy in anything, including conquering. But all that was past! Now, she had a plan!

She had every intention of conquering this world; first with the wizards of this country they called the United Kingdom, then the Muggles, and then every country in the world, one by one. Then and only then would this world indeed be a truly united kingdom…her kingdom!

One day, she swore, when she looked out this window she would see not a forest, but a city that stretched out across the land as far as the eye could see, with buildings only seen before on one other world now long since gone. The names of Britain, Europe, America and such would be history, as all continents would live under one title; The Empire of New Charn!

She would recreate her home world here on Earth. The Muggles could help with that, she supposed. After all, even meagre Mages needed slaves.

And after Charn had been reborn here, she would extend her new empire to the stars above, to other worlds beyond. She had crossed over to other worlds not once but thrice now. Her amulet was gone, but she had made it once before, so she could do it again. And who knew? If Narnia still existed by then, maybe she would return there with her new kingdom, and an army that would make her previous one look like a child's scout group, and reduce that world and all its beasts into ash!

It would take time, of course, but that was no matter, as the great thing about being immortal was that you had nothing but time.

Let Aslan have his one world! She'd take this one instead, and all the others thereafter!

Jadis laughed.

**To Be Continued…**


	3. Chapter 3

**Partners: Part 1**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Present:**

Harry held back, peering from the thick bushes of the Forbidden Forest at the imposing castle that he had once called home, but which now was home to the greatest threat that the Wizarding world had ever faced. Even Voldemort couldn't compare to it.

Tonight was the night. It was full of risk, and he knew there was little chance of any of his team coming back alive. He could only hope that death was the worst that would happen. Their foe had proven that she could do far worse. However, he also knew there was no other choice. If tonight was a failure, it didn't matter what else they did, as their world was lost to them. Jadis was already the undisputed ruler of the magical world, and the muggles across the world were already acknowledging her claim to rule them as well.

There were some countries still denying her, of course, and a lot were no doubt planning to go to war, but Harry knew that was futile. Jadis' magic was just too strong, as everyone knew. Her power seemed to grow stronger with each day, like an evil plague.

He looked around at the members of his team, or the ones he could see at the moment at least. Hermione and Ron were near him, as always of course, a little way to the back, Sirius had gone to scout ahead in his dog form, and then…there was Tonks.

He looked over to where the Metamorphmagus was crouching in the shadows of the trees. Each time he looked at her, he felt a chill, for she was no longer the fun loving, bubbly and enthusiastic jokester he had met years ago. Now, it was like she had turned into her aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, who was also there, hiding further on ahead.

Tonks' personality was almost a complete mirror to her demented aunt's, as she had become so cold, hateful and mad, rarely smiled, and kept to herself. She was a lot like her aunt now, he thought, but he knew better than to say it out loud. No doubt she and Bellatrix would hand him his own head if he ever verbally compared the two to one another.

Not that he could blame her. The war had taken its toll on all of them, pushing them to the brink of despair. Not even the first wizarding war with Voldemort had been as dire as this. But also…

Harry gave a mental shudder, as he remembered the night when the Tonks he had known lost her spirit, on the same night when he had also lost yet another good friend.

He looked over at the now dark and fear-imposing castle, as his memories awakened.

"Remus…" he whispered.

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_**Forest of Dean; One Year Ago:**_

_Harry took a small sip of his soup. It was a meagre meal, but it was the best they could manage due to the circumstances. They had now been on the run from Jadis' forces for months, running from one hiding place to another. The Forest of Dean was their latest hideout._

_Tonks was playfully showing off her metamorphic abilities to everyone, including a few children they had rescued from some of Jadis' soldiers, changing her lips into the beak of a duck, followed by a pig's snout, and a rabbit's twitching nose._

_He smiled at the display. Tonks was one of the few who had not lost her spirit, refusing to give way to grief while there were those still suffering around her. She and the Weasley twins were the resistance's one major source of entertainment, solely responsible for keeping people's chins up, despite their own grievances._

_Harry looked over at Ron who, as usual, was sullen, withdrawn and quiet. He had been so ever since the day of Jadis' attack on the Ministry. Her army had slaughtered countless wizards and witches, leaving hardly anyone alive. Among those casualties had been his own father and brother, Arthur and Percy Weasley._

_Mrs. Weasley, Ron's mother, had gone near mad with the grief, and only the continuous love and support of her remaining children had kept her sane. Ron, though, one of the youngest, had taken it upon himself to watch out for his family, rarely letting any of them out of his sight._

_Tonks, though, despite her laughter and cheerfulness, often took time out for herself, keeping to her own company. But that was to be expected, as whenever she was on her own, her thoughts were always on one person. Remus._

_Harry hadn't known it until after Jadis' attack on Hogwarts, but apparently Tonks had been in love with Remus Lupin for some time. He had been most surprised, as at the time he had thought Tonks had had a crush on his godfather, Sirius._

_But Remus was missing. He had been among those at Hogwarts during the battle who had insisted on staying to continue fighting Jadis, alongside Dumbledore. That was the last anyone had seen or heard of him since. If he had escaped, then no one knew or was telling of where he was now. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Tonks was still hoping that one day she would find him, but she kept her thoughts to herself, and never spoke of him out aloud, and no one mentioned him to her._

_Harry was about to go back to his soup, when a fearful sound floated through the air, travelling on the wind, to them._

"_Aeeeeooooooooo!" The sound of wolves._

"_Werewolves!" he cried out, dropping his bowl and leaping to his feet. "Everyone, up! We gotta move!"_

"_Werewolves?!" asked Ginny, as she raced to gather what little she could carry. "But…it's not even a full moon! How can they be here?!"_

"_Since Jadis took over, who knows?!"_

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_Jadis looked over at the unimpressive forest that they called Dean. Compared to the Forbidden Forest outside her new castle, it was a pitiful counterpart. Less than half its size, and with no worthy or mystical creatures to populate it, it might as well be nothing more than a glorified park._

"_My queen," one of her generals spoke, almost earnestly. "What are your orders?"_

_She cocked her head to the side, tasting the magic on the wind from the mages within the woods. There weren't that many, but she suspected who was there. Harry Potter and his raggedy team of resistance fighters, calling themselves Dumbledore's Army._

_Despite her victory over the Ministry and all of the wizarding world, many were convinced that Harry Potter could bring about her defeat, just because he had been the so-called Chosen One who had been destined to defeat Voldemort. And now that Voldemort was dead and gone, they thought he was truly meant to end her power._

_It was a fruitless hope, she surmised. People were simply clutching at straws, trying desperately to hold onto some kind of hope. The Narnians had been the same during her reign._

_She wasn't actually bothered with what the young boy did, as, despite popular belief, his wizards' skills were less than adequate. He knew nothing of weapons except the use of his own wand, and had virtually no resources to speak of. His only allies were a few minor wizards and witches, again with no special talents, and frankly were beneath her notice. He was no threat to her._

_However, if people believed in this ridiculous lie of his supposed destiny to defeat her, it could cause unrest, and inspire others to take up arms as well. During the early years of her reign in Narnia, she had sought to crush the Narnian's hopes, by showing them the hopelessness of them fighting her, and for the most part it had worked, except for that damn prophecy of theirs concerning the humans. Perhaps if she had wiped out that particular rumour (when it had been nothing more than a rumour), things could have turned out a lot differently._

"_Release the hounds," she said casually._

_Her general gave a long toothy grin, and turned to shout at some of the underlings, the soldiers under his command._

"_You heard Her Majesty! Open the cages!"_

_One of the wizards who, as fate would have it, had been the one she had once interrogated, Amycus Carrow, approached one of the cages their troops had brought with them._

"_Back, beast!" he shouted, zapping at the creature within with a small bolt from his wand, making it whine and growl._

_Jadis half-raised an eyebrow, as Amycus neared the cage-door. He was far too close, and she knew it. He, like a lot of Voldemort's former supporters, was unbelievably arrogant, up to the point of stupidity. They were so sure of their superiority over others, and enjoyed using that belief to berate and torture others below them._

'_Superiority,' she thought with amusement. She found the concept so humorous that she had to bite her own tongue to keep from laughing. It didn't matter to her whether these humans were wizards or muggles, for to her, no matter what they called themselves, they were all still human, and all humans, both physically and magically, were inferior to her._

_Amycus was no different, as his belief in himself, and his love for undermining others, was so great that he was ignoring his obvious mistakes._

"_Alright, beast! Out you…ARGH!"_

_Jadis smiled, as the beast leaped out of the cage with blinding speed, something that Amycus had obviously forgotten these creatures possessed, and bit his wand-hand off._

_Some of the wizards took action, as they conjured ropes to bide the monster. Jadis made no move to stop them, but stood quietly, listening to Amycus's pitiful cries and wails._

"_My arm! My arm! My Arm…!"_

"_Is gone," she finished for him, speaking lowly. Her tone seemed to make him forget his pain momentarily, as he looked up in fear at her._

"_That's what you get for toying with my pets," she said._

"_My Queen…please…forgive me…" he stuttered._

"_Now, I can restore to you your lost arm," she continued. "Such spells are no mystery or hardship to me." Amycus's face look relieved at her words, but the next she spoke brought on the exact opposite reaction. "However, what the bite also did will be harder to undo."_

"_Your Majesty?"_

_She cocked her head at him. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what happens when one is bitten by creatures such as these?"_

_Amycus's face filled with terror._

"_Slave!" she ordered one of the wizards who had once been under Amycus's command. "Have Mr. Carrow taken back to my castle. Apparently, we have a new soldier to add to my general's ranks."_

_The wizard, a young man no more than twenty, swallowed nervously, and with his wand began to levitate Amycus into the air, as he began kicking and screaming, begging for forgiveness and help. But none of his comrades from Voldemort's former army made any effort to give aid._

"_Now!" she said, moving back to her general. "General Fenrir, I believe I said to release them."_

_The werewolf, Fenrir, grinned widely. "As you command, My Queen," he said, raising his wand, and snarling an order to the encaged werewolves. The moment he did, the wolves, seeming to understand, each let out a chilling howl into the air, as the cage-doors opened, and they swarmed out, running faster than the wind._

"_Aeeeeooooooooo!"_

_Jadis continued to smile. It had been too long since she had had the chance to enjoy a good hunt._

_As she watched the hounds disappear into the shadows of the forest, Jadis didn't notice the dark woman behind her, who quietly slipped away from the crowd._

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_All around the camp, people were panicking, as they rushed to pick up what belongings they had._

"_Leave what you don't need!" Hermione shouted. "Just grab what you can, and run!"_

_All around, the wizards who could Apparate were grabbing people left and right of them, and vanishing from sight, transporting them away._

"_Harry! We've got to go!" said Hermione urgently._

"_Sirius was out checking the forest!" he said, holding onto his wand. "I'll stay and wait for him!"_

"_You can't do that! That's suicide!" stated Ron._

"_I'm not leaving without him!" Harry said firmly. "Besides, I can help stall the wolves until the Apparators get everyone out."_

"_By doing what? Playing fetch!" said Hermione._

"_Hermione!" he declared. "We've only got a few people, including you, who are capable of Apparating. That's not nearly enough to get all these people out in less than ten minutes, and that's nine and a half minutes too long!"_

_Hermione had spent a lot of her time studying, and learning new ways and techniques that could help them in the war. Apparating had been among one of the first skills she had committed herself to master. It had taken her a long time, but because of her brains and tireless commitment, she had succeeded._

_Her lip trembled. "I'm staying to help."_

"_No! I just said; you're one of the few Apparators we have. You have to help get everyone out of here!"_

"_Then I'll stay," a new voice said. They all turned to see Tonks standing before them._

"_Absolutely not!" said Harry. "You're the same. You can help the others Apparate out of here…"_

"_I'm also one of your best fighters who can help you keep these beasts back while everyone else makes a run for it, genius," she retorted. "Plus, how do you and your uncle plan to leave once everyone is gone?"_

_Harry opened his mouth to speak, only to shut it again, as he conceded the point to her. They needed all the fighters they could get at the moment._

"_I'm staying, too," said Ron._

"_No!" Tonks, Harry and Hermione all said together._

_He glared at them. "Why?! Don't think I could bring anything to the fight?! Think I'd just be a burden to you during the attack…"_

"_No, it's not that at all, Ron," hastened Harry._

"_Then what?!"_

"_Well," he began hesitantly. "No offence, Ron, but… Honestly, I'd rather face all of Jadis' army than go face Molly and tell her that we had brought one of her kids into harm's way."_

_Ron shut his mouth, then opened and shut it again a few times, as though trying to come up with a witty comeback. In the end, though, he shrugged. "Fair enough."_

_They each gave a short smile, but another howl in the distance soon had them rushing._

"_Go with Hermione, help the others escape. I'll see you all soon!"_

_With that, he turned and ran into the thick of the forest, Tonks behind him._

"_Don't worry!" she called back to them. "I'll look after him!"_

_Hermione and Ron watched them leave for a second, before they raced over to Molly and the other waiting people, to start Apparating._

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_Harry and Tonks made their way through the dark forest, as the wolves' howls echoed around them, growing louder with each second._

"_Sirius should have half-finished his check by now," said Tonks. "So he's probably somewhere near that circle of Ash trees." The circle of Ash trees was one of the few landmarks they had noticed in this forest, and from where they had based some of their maps off._

_She looked at Harry's worried and angst-filled face. Not that she couldn't blame him, as aside from Ron and Hermione, Sirius was his only family._

"_Don't worry about him," she said assuredly. "Sirius has been in tighter spots than this, and he knows how to stay hidden. Besides, as long as he's in his dog form he's safe. Werewolves only attack humans, remember?"_

"_I just wish I knew how she could have werewolves out tonight, when it's not a full moon." Harry frowned in thought, and then shook his head. "A lot of things we all once thought implausible now seem to be possible…at least to Jadis."_

_The howls of the wolves drew nearer._

"_I'll head this way! You go that way!" he said, as he began to run._

"_No way!" she started, grabbing his arm. "I'm not letting you go off by your…"_

"_Tonks! We've got no time for this!"_

"_No matter. I'm not…" Unfortunately, whatever she had planned to say to him never made it past her lips. For at that moment, a huge wolf ripped through some bushes, its huge jaws missing their heads by a mere centimetre._

"_Stupefy!" they both yelled, but the wolf was too quick, as it easily avoided their spells, and once more leaped at them._

_Tonks pushed Harry out of the way, firing spell after spell at the beast. Despite the blasts of the spell, though, she could hear the echoes of multiple howls coming closer._

"_Run for it!" she yelled, while mentally cursing herself. 'Why is it Harry always seems to get his way when we're in the middle of a crisis?'_

_After they both fired one more spell at the beast, they each ran for their lives. Tonks listened to Harry, as he ran quickly through the trees until she could hear him no more, and then she concentrated on her own problems. Already she could hear two werewolves approaching her._

_She crashed through the trees and bushes, slid down on a small bank in front of her, and quickly dodged to the side, to avoid the snapping jaws of one of the wolves, as it made for her head._

"_Incarcerous!" she yelled, but didn't bother waiting to see if the conjured ropes had successfully bound the monster. Even if it did, she still had the second one to deal with. She raced on; unable to tell whether the breeze she felt on the back of her neck was from the wind or the wolves' breath._

_For several minutes, she ran, shouting spell after spell, until finally she came to a small frozen lake. She paused at the edge, for the ice was thin, and liable to break under her weight. As she paused, the one remaining werewolf came charging through the branches._

_She gave a snarl of her own at the beast. "All right, beast!" she yelled, brandishing her wand at it. "Come get some!"_

_The wolf leaped, and Tonks shouted several spells, from Stupefy to Incarcerous, but this beast appeared to be smarter than all the rest, as it easily leapt out of harm's way, dodging each of the spells._

_Using her metamorphic abilities, she altered her face to resemble that of the wolf, and gave a proper snarl at it, in a bid to at least confuse it and give herself a chance for a little time, but the beast was not buying it. It slammed into her, pushing her right into the dirt, balancing its whole weight on her chest, its growls loud in her ears, and its breath washing over her in a warm cloud._

_Tonks said nothing, and just lay there on the ground, looking up into the monster's fearful face. Its paw was stepping on her hand, her wand lying uselessly a foot away._

_As the wolf's gaping jaws snarled down at her, part of Tonks wanted to start crying, and if werewolves were capable of understanding human speech while in their wolf forms, the other part of her might want to start pleading for her life. But Tonks was stronger and more stubborn than that. She merely kept silent, and lay where she was, her eyes closed, as she awaited her fate._

_A minute passed, and…nothing._

_Slowly, she opened her eyes, half expecting the wolf to instantly chomp down on her, but still it did nothing. When she looked up at it, she found it staring down at her with an unusual expression on its face, which was a miracle in itself, as werewolves weren't known for having any facial expressions, minus the whole snarling feature._

_Its face looked mildly confused, as though it were unsure of what to do._

"_Well, go on then," she said to it, annoyed with all the waiting. She was prepared to die if need be, but this was mental torture, like it was deliberately making her wait, to cause her more fear. "Kill me if you want, but get on with it!"_

_Still, though, the wolf did nothing, but continued to stare down at her. And then, it did the next most amazing thing to have happened to her all year… It spoke her name._

"_T…Ton…Tonks," the beast managed, trying desperately to speak. The fact that it could speak at all was unbelievable, for as far as Tonks knew, werewolves shouldn't be able to talk when in their beast forms._

_That was the moment when she finally noticed the beast's eyes. She had been so transfixed on its jaws more than anything that she hadn't really noticed them before now. They weren't plain dark eyes, like the common werewolf, but were a pale green, not bright like Harry, but pale like a dull emerald._

_They were eyes she knew very well, and had hoped to one day see again._

"_Remus?" she stuttered._

_Slowly, the wolf retreated, its eyes never leaving her, as it moved off from her chest, backing up until she had room to get up._

"_Remus," she said again, her voice breaking. "Whe…what's happened to you? How are you able to speak in your wolf form? How are you even a wolf now?! The lunar cycle's nowhere near." She knew she was rambling, but she had been searching and hoping to see him again for so long, she could barely contain the surge of adrenalin within her._

_Remus, though, said nothing, and instead began to start snarling again._

_At the sound of his vicious growls, she started to back up. "Re…Remus?" She carefully made her way over to where her wand was lying._

_Remus's eyes had momentarily turned into a plain dark colour, typical for werewolves, but at the sound of her voice returned once more to Remus' human colour._

"_Tonks…" he repeated. His voice was strained and beastial-like. "Tonks…"_

"_Yes, Remus, I'm here," she said calmly, holding out her hand, as she would to an ordinary dog, but Remus made no move to come closer to her. In fact, he quickly backed away, as though frightened._

"_Remus, what is it?"_

"_Sta…stay away!" he urged. "Not…safe!"_

"_It's all right. You don't have to…"_

"_I SAID STAY AWAY!" he roared, making her jump back. "Don't come…any closer!"_

_She stared at him, her eyes wide with shock and fear. "What happened to you, Remus?" she asked finally._

_The wolf shook its head, as though in distress, its paws scratching the ground furiously. "Keep away, Tonks… I'm…not safe…"_

"_Yes, but what happened to you? How are you like this without the full moon?"_

_Remus shook his head wildly. "Jadis," he simply replied. "After she…took over Hogwarts…she killed most of the prisoners…but not me."_

"_Why?" She thought for one moment it might have been mercy, until she remembered that mercy was a word not found in Jadis' dictionary._

"_She…somehow…found out that I was a werewolf. Kept me as a test subject…in her lab… Did…tests…" He let out a low whine. "Sssso many tests…so many spells she did… I nearly died. And then…I did."_

"_What do you mean? You're standing right here before me."_

"_Not me…the wolf!" Remus growled. "She, somehow, suppressed my humanity…made me nearly all wolf. I haven't walked on…human legs in over half a year now… Never talked till now…Can barely think most of the time."_

_He suddenly let out a loud snarl, startling Tonks for a moment._

"_You have to…go… Get out of here!"_

"_Never!" she swore. "I've been waiting and hoping to see you again all year. I'm not going to lose you again."_

"_You already have!" He whined. "Tonks…the man you loved is dead. I am all that is left of him now."_

"_I don't care that you're a werewolf, Remus. I never have…"_

"_This isn't about me being a werewolf!" he snapped. "I'm not even that anymore! At least even the worst of werewolves are human some of the time, but as for me… Now there is nothing. Jadis saw to that!"_

_He was starting to grow more agitated, and Tonks couldn't help noticing his eyes starting to go black again._

"_Remus?" she whispered. "Come back with me. We'll see if anyone can reverse what Jadis did, or at least make it more manageable."_

"_No one can do anything!" he roared, his paws scratching the earth deeper, as he shook his head from side to side, growling and snarling. "Jadis took everything! Everything I am! Everything I WAS!"_

"_Remus, please, calm down."_

"_THIS IS AS CALM AS I CAN GET NOW!"_

_Tonks, now close enough to her wand, reached down and grabbed it. She aimed it at Remus, her hand shaking slightly as she did._

_At the sight of her wand, Remus's eyes suddenly went all black again, and he gave a loud howl, before leaping at her._

"_Stupefy!" she cried out, blasting the wolf that had once been Remus, as it came at her, and winced as she heard its pained whine, as it fell to the ground._

_She hurried over to him, but he was already starting to stand up again on his own. She carefully re-aimed her wand at him again, but the shaking in her hand did not lessen._

"_Remus," she begged. "Please!"_

_The wolf snarled loudly, but then, slowly its eyes took on more colour again, and Remus's beautiful green eyes returned._

"_Tonks…" he whined pathetically. "Help me…"_

"_I will, Remus," she promised. "Let's get you back to camp. I'll take you to the others, and they'll…"_

"_NO!" he snapped. "I can't go there! Never, do you hear!"_

"_But…"_

"_I'm too dangerous! You've seen for yourself! I can't be around other people!"_

"_You've managed to control yourself around me…"_

"_Only barely! The beast is even now practically screaming in my head! I can feel it, clawing at the barriers of my mind."_

"_You can fight it!" she said assuredly._

"_NO, I CAN'T!" he howled again. "Tonks, I can't fight it!"_

"_You're doing it right now!"_

"_But I can't do it every day! Not every hour of every day, never slipping, not even for a second! I only need to make one tiny slip, and then any poor soul who's close to me at the time, will die or worse!"_

"_The other wizards should find a way to help you, maybe change you back."_

"_I doubt it. Jadis has proven time and time again what advanced and powerful magic she possesses. I doubt even Dumbledore would be able to help."_

"_There has to be a way to help you!" she said, tears filling her eyes._

_For a moment, Remus looked calm again, if only for an instant. "There is," he whispered, and then looked up at her._

_In that moment, both looked at each other, and in Remus's eyes Tonks knew instantly what it was he was asking of her._

"_No…" she stuttered. "No, Remus. I can't…I won't…"_

"_Please!" Remus pleaded with her, his eyes brimming with tears. "Tonks, if you ever had any love for me, even the smallest bit, then please do this one thing I ask of you."_

"_You can't expect me…"_

"_I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS!" His voice roared out again. "I CAN'T SPEND EVERY DAY KNOWING I CAN KILL SOMEONE, AND SERVING THAT DAMN JADIS!"_

_Tonks gripped her wand tightly, but the tears fell from her eyes like a flood._

_Remus snarled, but he kept himself lying on the ground. His own eyes crying, as he looked up to her, the silent plea in them._

"_Tonks," he said below his breath, as though every word were a struggle. "Please…release me… Give me peace."_

_Tonks stared at him through her watery eyes, each moment seeming to last an eternity, until finally she slowly nodded, and raised her wand up with a badly shaking hand._

"_I love you," she whispered._

"_I…" Remus snarled again, his eyes growing dangerously dark again. "I…love…you…tooOOOOAAAAARRRGHHHH!"_

_Tonks closed her eyes, as Remus's snarls grew louder, and his eyes went black again._

"_Avada Kedavra."_

_0000000000_

_Harry and Sirius raced through the trees, as the sound of the wolves echoed closer towards them._

"_We have to find Tonks," said Harry. He had found Sirius not too far from where he had been separated from Tonks. Sirius had been in his Animagus form, as werewolves usually ignored animals, and only attacked humans. These werewolves, however, were not the usual breed, as they were attacking anything that crossed their path. Harry had arrived just in time to save his godfather before two of them had ripped his head off._

_Sirius ran beside him, his left leg limping slightly, as Harry helped to hold him up. He had been fortunate not to have been bitten by any of the werewolves; his only injury being a sprained ankle after one of them had knocked him down._

"_Jadis has gone and completely turned the whole world upside down!" Sirius moaned. "Remus never once attacked me when I was in my dog form, no werewolf did."_

"_Jadis has turned 'everything' upside down since she arrived," Harry agreed, though he would have loved to know how she could have got werewolves under her control, and got them to attack non-humans, since that was supposed to be impossible._

_As they crashed through the bushes, fortune seemed to smile on them, as they came upon Tonks sitting right in the middle of a clearing, beside a dead wolf._

"_Tonks!" he cried out. "Thank God you're here. We gotta get out of here, right now!"_

_But Tonks said nothing, as she just continued sitting where she was, staring down at the dead wolf, her face expressionless._

"_Tonks!" Sirius urged._

_Slowly, she raised her head up to him, and he soon noticed her face, as blank as a piece of paper._

"_He's gone," she whispered._

"_What? Who's gone?" he asked. "Never mind! We have to get out of here, like now! Werewolves are coming after us!"_

"_Remus…" she stuttered. "My Remus…"_

"_What?" said Sirius hesitantly, forgetting about the approaching werewolves for the moment. "What about Remus?"_

_She looked down to the fallen beast beside her, her grief stricken face explaining all, and Sirius understood._

"_Remus," he breathed out._

"_No," Harry's voice caught in his throat, as he looked down at the body of what had once been one of his parent's oldest friends._

_Sirius's eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them back. Now was not the time for crying!_

"_Tonks!" he said urgently. "We have to go now!"_

_She looked back up at him, her face still unreadable, but before she could say anything…_

"_You should listen to him, you know."_

_The three of them spun round, and spotted the dark silhouette of a woman standing between the forest's trees._

"_You!" Sirius growled, despite being in his human form, and even Tonks, in her despair, seemed to grow more alive, glaring dangerously at the dark woman._

_The woman in question just stared solemnly back at them. "Cousin," she said, greeting Sirius._

_Sirius already had his wand out and aimed at her. "Where's the rest of your troops, Bellatrix?!"_

_The witch, Bellatrix Lestrange, slowly stepped forward, with her wand also out, but with it pointed down to the ground. "I am alone," she said._

"_Lucky for us then!" said Tonks, taking her own wand and aiming it quickly at her._

"_I did not come here to fight you, cousin," Bellatrix said, seemingly ignoring Tonks. "I am here with a proposal, and wish to negotiate with you."_

"_Ha! Why should we ever wish to negotiate with you?" Tonks said, spitting at her._

_This time, Bellatrix glared daggers at the young Metamorphmagus that was her niece, her face once more filled with the twisted hate that Harry had long since expected of her._

"_I am here to talk to your leaders, not you, mud-blood!" she hissed._

"_We don't have time for this!" Harry hissed back at all of them. "The wolves are coming."_

_Tonks nodded, and walked over to them._

"_Take me with you!" Bellatrix suddenly demanded, making all three of them pause and stare at her incredulously._

"_Say what?" said Harry, momentarily forgetting about the werewolves converging on them._

"_I said…take… me… with… you," she repeated, speaking slowly as though talking to an idiot._

"_Why would we ever do that?" Tonks asked, also looking incredulous._

"_Because," Bellatrix added slowly, "I wish to join you."_

_Tonks' eyes thinned. "You…want to join us?"_

"_No, I do not want to," Bellatrix half-snarled. "But I wish to, simply because I have no choice. Not if I want to defeat and destroy Jadis."_

"_Why would you want to destroy Jadis? She's your leader, isn't she?" asked Harry curiously._

_Bellatrix's eyes suddenly flared up at him, her anger incensed. "She is not my leader, mud-blood child!"_

"_Watch your words, Bellatrix," Sirius said lowly, his tone a warning._

_Just then, the wolves' howl came again, even closer than before, making even Bellatrix look cautious._

"_Listen, I will explain all to you, but first we have to leave here! Don't take me to any of your hiding places if you want. Take me someplace else, but we have to leave now! Unless you want to become the main course at a werewolves' feast?!"_

_Harry looked at his godfather and Tonks, and could see they had no intention of taking this deranged relative of theirs with them anywhere. However, Harry could see something they couldn't, which was the underlying fear in her eyes, something that did not go with what he had learned about Bellatrix Lestrange. She was a lot of things, but fearful had never been one of them, except apparently in the old days when she thought she might displease Voldemort._

_Plus, there was also the unknown reason of why she had come this far into the forest, alone, with all the werewolves about, and why she would think anyone would ever willingly take her request of joining them seriously._

"_Bring her with us," he said, before Sirius or Tonks could speak._

_Both of them looked at him as if he had grown a second head, clearly thinking he had gone mad._

"_Tonks, transport us to that park in Birmingham we once went to. None of our hideouts are anywhere close there. We might as well hear what she has to say there, and then we'll make our decision of whether she can join us or not."_

_Tonks looked ready to refuse, but Harry interrupted her once again. "Tonks, please! We've got no time to waste, and she had to have known how any of us would react with her here. She obviously has something interesting to tell us, if nothing else."_

_Tonks seemed to struggle for a bit, but finally she nodded. "Fine!"_

_Harry and Sirius wasted no time, as they both grabbed onto her arms, just as the wolves' howls got nearer. Bellatrix quickly moved forward, pausing only slightly when Tonks glared at her._

"_I can't Apparate to where you're going unless you tell me where that is," she said._

_Tonks winced slightly, but nodded, and Bellatrix came to her, taking her arm, though it was clear she was liking it less than Tonks was._

_At that moment, a wolf suddenly emerged from the trees, dashing toward them. But at the same time that it did that, there was the sound of a whiz and a pop, and when the wolf approached the area that the unlikely quartet had been in a second ago…there was nothing._

**To Be Continued…**


	4. Chapter 4

**Partners: Part 2**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

0000000000

**Present:**

Harry blinked the tears away, as he remembered Remus's demise. Tonks had never been the same after that, slowly retreating into herself day after day. She had never cracked a joke or smile since, and now her only form of pleasure was in the fight to take Jadis down, small chance as that might be.

He nervously bit his fingernails, as he anxiously waited for Sirius to return and give them the okay to proceed. While he did this, he couldn't help looking back on Bellatrix again.

Despite her having fought on their side for almost a year now, no one, least of all he, had ever grown to trust her, which apparently was okay with her, as she didn't care either way. He still couldn't believe she was on their side now, as the idea of Bellatrix Lestrange in his army was almost as unbelievable as Voldemort and he being best friends.

He remembered how, after they had escaped from the werewolves, and leaving poor Remus's body to Merlin knows what fate there, they had returned to the rest of the resistance, and Bellatrix had appeared before everyone there…

0000000000

_**One Year Ago; Unknown Location:**_

_The remains of Dumbledore's Army all lay exhausted, visibly shaken, and attempting to comfort one another. Not everyone had managed to get out of the forest in time._

"_Please, let me go back! My husband…"_

"_Where's my mommy?"_

"_You left my brother there! How could you?!"_

_There hadn't been enough time to get all of the people out of the forest. By the time the werewolves had located them, there had still been close to a dozen people left to transport, and there wasn't any time left._

_There had been no choice. When the wolves had come, the Apparators had reluctantly grabbed onto the nearest person next to them, and vanished. They had done so with heavy hearts because they knew that they couldn't risk coming back for the rest._

_All around there were the anguished cries and sobbing of the friends and relatives of those who had been left behind. Everyone knew there had been no choice, for werewolves were not known for leaving anyone alive, and by the time the Apparators got back there, there would be no one left to save, and then the werewolves would turn their attentions to them._

_Even so, a lot of the Apparators were being given the cold shoulder by those grieving, not that anyone could blame them._

_Hermione stood, tapping her fingers against each other nervously. 'Where is he?' she thought anxiously. If they were to lose Harry, she didn't know what they would do._

_Besides the anguished grief that she, Ron and everyone else would feel, Harry also represented the one minor hope that everyone had left in their hearts. Because he had been the supposed chosen one, destined to bring about Voldemort's defeat, he was all that people believed they had left to fight Jadis with. If they lost him then…they would have nothing._

"_Hermione?" Ron said gently. She turned, just as he touched her shoulder, and saw his worried face looking at her._

"_There's still no sign of them," she said simply, her face betraying her worry._

"_Don't worry. Harry's got out of worse. And Sirius is with him, and he's gone through even more." Ron was obviously trying his best to sound optimistic, but, like her, his face showed nothing but worry, minus the small and rather weak attempt at a smile._

_Hermione gave a weak attempt of her own, and was about to reply when…_

_(POP!)_

_She spun her head to the right at the sound, having recognised it instantly as that of an Apparator appearing, having gone through the same spell herself numerous times._

"_Harry!" she squealed in delight when she saw him, Sirius and Tonks standing not ten metres away, and rushed over to him, Ron close behind her._

_Harry meanwhile was less enthusiastic. He kept quiet, and merely gave them a small smile before being enveloped in Hermione's arms. Sirius was just as solemn, but Tonks' face looked like death itself._

"_Mate, what happened?" asked Ron frantically. "Did you see Jadis? Was it really werewolves?"_

"_Guys!" Harry interrupted him sharply. "Sorry, but… Look, I'll tell you all that happened later, but right now we've got something else to discuss."_

"_Like what?"_

_Harry chewed his lower lip, and turned around, looking back at Tonks and his godfather, the latter of which looked even graver than before. Tonks' face was stony, and just started to walk away. When she did, Ron and Hermione suddenly noticed a third person who had been standing in-between the two, unnoticed._

_Hermione gasped, and Ron's face went dark. "What the bloody hell is she doing here?!" he half-snarled._

_Bellatrix smiled. "Charmed to meet you all, I'm sure."_

_Around them, everyone who had been watching gasped in shock at the sight of Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Voldemort's most dedicated and notorious Death Eaters, standing before them. Some even grasped their wands; preparing to cast whatever harmful spells they could think of._

"_Harry…" Hermione stuttered, her voice slightly shaking. "How… What's going on?!"_

_Sirius scoffed. "Excellent question."_

"_Bellatrix Lestrange…" a small voice whispered, and everyone looked up to see the last person they wanted there at that moment._

_Bellatrix looked over at the voice's owner, and smiled again. "Neville Longbottom, isn't it? How's mum and dad?"_

_Neville stared at the former Death Eater, his normally soft face, with the small scar from a previous run-in with Jadis' soldiers on his left eyebrow, grew hard, as a rage-filled glare spread across it._

"_Better now they're about to be avenged!" he yelled, as he grabbed his wand and aimed it at her, looking as though he were about to start shouting spells. Bellatrix, too, had her wand drawn, and looked ready to start fighting as well._

"_That's enough!" shouted Harry, stepping between them. "Lower your wands, unless you both wanna get kicked out!"_

_Neville looked at him as if he'd gone mad. "Harry, do you even know who this woman is? This is Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eater! She's the one who…who…" His voice broke a little, as his angry glare never left her._

"_Hurt your poor mummy and daddy, did I?" Bellatrix cooed at him mockingly._

"_You shut up, too, Bellatrix!" Sirius snapped. "Or you can go piss off and find someone else to hang around with!"_

_She glared at her cousin, but said nothing, and lowered her wand._

"_Harry, what's going on?" asked Ron hesitantly._

_Harry sighed, and rubbed his head, as though in pain. "Bellatrix here…wishes to join us."_

_The reaction was explosive. There could be no better word for it, as everyone began shouting and yelling. Naturally, not a single person was willing to hear their reasons for allowing Bellatrix in their new hideout, let alone join them._

"_EVERYONE PIPE DOWN!" Sirius's voice boomed out. "Believe me when I say we're not happy about this anymore than the rest of you! But, unbelievable as it may sound, Bella here has made a pretty convincing argument."_

'_You sound almost as if you believe it yourself,' Sirius thought to himself. After the four of them had escaped the woods, they had transported themselves to a park in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, to listen to what Bellatrix had to say._

_Personally, Sirius had more or less made his mind up by then. The idea of working with his deranged cousin was nauseating to him, as he had hated her since early childhood, and the first wizarding war had only added to that. But he had to admit that what she said had made sense, and the fact was they needed all the help they could get. Not even the first war had been as much trouble as this one._

_He looked over at her, and nodded for her to speak._

_Bellatrix made a small scoff, but looked over at everyone. "I was with Jadis' army for over ten months. I've been in her castle, I know the ways in, seen her use her spells, and have information regarding her plans for the coming months and years. I'll gladly share all this knowledge with you, in return for you allowing me to fight with you against her."_

"_Why should you want to help us defeat your own queen?!" someone shouted._

_Bellatrix glared at whoever it was. " . .Queen!" she screeched. "She's destroyed everything that I dedicated my life to, everything my Lord worked toward, and then has the gall to treat the rest of us purebloods as if we're no more than pitiful…!"_

"_Mudbloods?" Hermione suggested, and replied Bellatrix's death glare with a calm one of her own._

"_Hermione?" asked Ron._

"_I've been hearing rumours that Jadis has about as much love for purebloods as they did for muggles. Seems she doesn't hold much value in the entire human race."_

"_She forced me to work alongside a mere Muggle-born," Bellatrix stuttered furiously. "And worse, she then promoted the mudblood, and had me answer to him!"_

"_Oh, how tragic," said Ron sarcastically. "But tell me, what possible reason could there be for us to work with you?"_

_She gave a half-snarl at him._

"_Because Jadis has taken everything that she's known and loved from her," Harry's voice said quietly, and at everyone's curious look, he continued. "Bellatrix here was a Death Eater, completely dedicated to the cause, twisted as it was. She was all for purebloods being on top, and mud-bloods and muggles being on the bottom. Then, along comes Jadis, who frankly couldn't care less about blood status. I mean, we've all seen and heard her. The woman basically thinks all humans are beneath her, so she doesn't care whether they're magical or not."_

"_So we should trust this demon just because she doesn't care for being treated the same way that her kind treated us?!" someone asked, astounded._

"_Oh, please!" Bellatrix scoffed. "Let me make one thing perfectly clear to all you Mudbloods and blood traitors… I don't give a rat's tail about any of you, or saving the world from Jadis' power! I only want one thing, and one thing only, and that's to get revenge on Jadis for killing the world's most powerful wizard!"_

_Sirius looked up at her mention of Voldemort's defeat. He had always known Bellatrix and her husband were Voldemort's most devoted disciples, as they had proven that many times during the first war, and he recalled watching Bellatrix look upon the Dark Lord with an odd mix of obsession and devotion, just as one might look if they saw their God suddenly walking among them._

_Despite being married, Sirius knew Bellatrix had no love for her husband. She had only married him because he was one of the few pure-blooded wizards who she wasn't related to, although Sirius always looked upon them as destiny's couple. They seemed like the perfect match, made in Hell. But no, as far as love was concerned, he had a feeling that the only feeling his dark cousin had resembling that was for her late Lord, which would also explain a little more why she wanted to help take down Jadis._

"_But to do that I need help," Bellatrix added, "and you're the best I can hope for. My former allies and comrades have all turned traitor, preferring to lick Jadis' boots whenever she walks by!"_

"_And your husband?" asked another person._

_Bellatrix gave another half-snarl. "He was among those who first fell at her feet, begging for a chance to prove himself to her." She sounded almost sick as she said that._

"_I don't care whether any of you trust me or not!" she then said. "Do whatever you want, but be warned, if you reject me, you also reject all the knowledge I bring with me about Jadis and her secrets. I was with her for nearly a year, so I have gained quite a lot. Can you really afford to lose all that?"_

_The crowd all grew silent, as though unsure. Their silence, however, spurred one young man to react, though._

"_You can't seriously be considering taking this devil on?!" Neville practically screamed out, nearly frothing at the mouth. "Do you know what this thing has done in the past?! Can you even comprehend…?!"_

"_Oh boohoo, cry me a river, Longbottom," Bellatrix said scornfully._

_Hermione was quick to react, as she rushed forward, grabbing Neville's arm to stop him from seizing his wand, his eyes glaring daggers at the former Death Eater._

"_Neville!" she said firmly, but as gently as she could manage. In truth, she agreed with him, as out of all Voldemort's former Death Eaters, Bellatrix Lestrange was one of the worst._

"_I…won't…work with her!" he said forcefully through his teeth._

"_What a great shame that is for the resistance," said Bellatrix._

"_SHUT UP, BELLATRIX!" Harry, Sirius and half the crowd yelled, making her cock her eyebrow at them. Mercifully, though, she decided to keep silent._

_Harry walked over to Neville, and placed his hand on his friend's arm. "Neville," he said gently._

"_Harry, you can't trust her!" he whispered. "I don't care what she says, or what she promises. Bellatrix Lestrange is a monster!"_

"_I agree," he replied. "Bellatrix is all that and worse, but still…"_

"_No! No stills, no buts, no nothing! I can't work with that…"_

"_You can and you will, Neville!" said Harry, a little more forceful than he had intended. "We need all the help we can get, and you know that."_

"_Harry, you know what she did to me, what she did to my parents!"_

_Harry chewed his lower lip, and sighed. "I know, Neville. Believe me; I know exactly how you feel. If Voldemort was here instead of her, I'd be feeling the same as you."_

"_Then how could you ever even consider bringing her?!"_

_Harry looked at him, deep in the eyes. "Because what other choice do we have? Bellatrix said it best. Can we really afford to lose any help she may be able to give?"_

"_And you think she won't turn on us the second she has the chance?"_

"_Of course she will," said Harry, almost exasperated. "To be honest, I'm almost surprised she hasn't tried already, but…like I said, what other choice do we have?_

_Tears filled Neville's eyes, as he glared at his former schoolmate, and glared even more hatefully at the witch in question. Harry, of course, knew all about Neville's parents, how Bellatrix had been one of those who had tortured them with the Cruciatus Curse, leaving them mentally broken. He could only imagine what torture this must be for him, being forced to work together with one of those solely responsible for ruining his family's lives._

"_I can only promise you that we won't ever trust her, Neville," Harry whispered. "We'll have all our people on her 24/7, including you if you wish. If you even think she's up to something, have her bound, gagged, whatever you want."_

_That seemed to relax Neville, if only a little, but still he never took his eyes off her. "I suppose torturing her would be a bit too much to ask?"_

_Harry smiled. "Not in public."_

0000000000

**Present:**

The truce had been uneasy to say the least, but so far Bellatrix had lived up to her word, and had yet to betray them. It seemed her hatred of Jadis, and her thirst for vengeance for Voldemort, was a lot stronger than her hatred for Harry Potter and working with a bunch of Muggle-borns.

That didn't mean that Neville had ever taken his eyes off her, though. In fact, no one had.

Just then, a rustling of leaves came from up ahead, and Harry instinctually gripped his wand harder. A few moments later, the large and unmistakeable dog-form of his godfather came pounding through some bushes, while letting out a low whine, indicating everyone to move forward.

Taking a deep breath, The Boy Who Lived cautiously inched forward, never loosening his grip on his wand.

**To Be Continued…**


	5. Chapter 5

**Dumbledore's Defeat**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

0000000000

**Present:**

Harry cautiously made his way through the endless corridors of what had once been Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It no longer went by that name, though, as it was now Jadis' castle. The days of it being a school to teach young wizards and witches were gone, most likely forever.

As he walked on, he looked around, seeing nothing familiar. Jadis had completely remade the castle into her own. Nothing was as it once was. And then, of course, there were the statues.

He winced, as he passed by countless statues that he knew hadn't always been stone. The courtyards outside were full of them, many of which had once been friends who had given their lives trying to fight Jadis.

A lot of them were Centaurs. For some reason, they had been among the first creatures that Jadis had gone after to destroy. No one knew why, as Centaurs had never really been interested in interfering in human affairs or wars, but for some reason Jadis and her soldiers had hunted down each one of them, not just the herd in the Forbidden Forest, but all Centaurs across the country. Jadis often participated in the hunts, using her wand to add them to her collection of statues, or sometimes, she would set aside her wand and fight them with a sword.

Jadis had proven herself to be more than just a witch many times. She was also a skilled warrior. Harry had seen her in battle, and seen proof she was a master with a blade. That made her an even more dangerous foe, as most wizards and witches tended to rely on magic alone.

Harry had made it to the main entrance of the castle, his father's invisibility cloak reliably concealing him, and had moved, so far, undetected. He could see nothing of the ghosts that once haunted the school and no living people either, save for a few Death Eaters that now called themselves soldiers of the Queen's Army, but he did see the paintings.

The living paintings that hung from the walls were not those he remembered from the days when the castle had been Hogwarts. The new ones appeared to be of kings and queens, dressed in odd attire with crowns upon their heads, but he recognised none of them. They were living paintings, of course, as they looked out of their frames, moving as they pleased, but luckily, none saw him.

As Harry peered closer at them, he noticed that each of them was an extremely handsome person, yet they had a sense of forbidding darkness about them that he could not place. The first paintings he saw near the main entrance had had people that bore a sort of kindness and gentleness, while farther on it seemed as if they degenerated with each picture.

With every new portrait he saw, he noticed their faces taking on new and darker aspects. They had started out looking kind and benign, then solemn, then proud but cruel, and then they bore a kind of despair, like they had done or suffered dreadful things.

'Jadis must have put these pictures up when she took over,' Harry thought. 'Wonder where she got them from, though?'

He walked on, his eyes still on the eyes of the paintings. Although they couldn't see him, they never left him.

Harry couldn't help observing each painting that he came upon, and didn't notice until he was there, but they led him straight to what had once been the Great Hall. The last of the portraits that hung near the door was that of a large man with a dark beard, no moustache, with a gold pointed crown, jewels around his neck, and a pale green robe. There was something in his vicious face that reminded Harry greatly of Jadis.

The door was half open, so, unable to resist the temptation, he silently crept up to the door and tiptoed in. The instant he did, he wished he hadn't.

The Hall was, again, nothing like he remembered. The room, which once bore a cosy atmosphere, with a golden candlelight colour, now appeared to be of whitewashed stone. The chairs and tables had all been removed, as had the banners bearing the crests for each of Hogwarts' houses. Candles still floated in the air, illuminating the room, and the ceiling was still enchanted to show the sky, but it was unlike any sky he remembered ever seeing. It was very dark, like a blue that was nearly black, no clouds, and a huge red sun that was bigger than the usual yellow one, together with a smaller but incredibly bright star that hung close to the left of it.

At the head of the hall, there had been built a huge dais with several steps that led up to an enormous throne, made of ivory and polished marble, which seemed to look down upon the entire hall. The throne had some odd symbols carved into it, and was decorated with silk-satin cushions, and there appeared to be two statues on either side of it that had been fitted to act as pillars for the two armrests.

Curiously, he looked closer at the two statues…only to recoil when he realised who they were. Or, to be more exact, who they used to be.

The sight of the first statue provided him with a grim sense of satisfaction. It stood as though ready to cast a spell, but with a twisted expression of shock and surprise upon its face. Harry had heard the rumours of what had happened; that Jadis had approached him the night of his return, and made him the first of her collection. There was even talk that she had somehow removed some sort of magic that he had been using, which had kept him alive all this time.

Harry shuddered, as he remembered that night, when he had seen how Cedric Diggory had been killed, and when his parents' souls had seemingly come back from the dead to save him. He also vaguely remembered afterwards when he had returned to the school. He had been in such a haze then, he could only recall certain images and flashbacks, but he remembered shortly after feeling something like a cut go through him, like something had been sliced out of him. It hadn't exactly been bad, as he had felt somehow relieved afterwards, and hadn't had any of those bad dreams since, though he never learned what had happened, and still didn't know.

Resisting the urge to spit on him, Harry turned his face away from the statue that had once been Voldemort, and looked to the one on his right.

This one evoked the exact opposite emotions, as he looked at the face that had no fear on it, no pain but a seeming acceptance. Obviously, he had chosen to take whatever fate Jadis had planned for him with dignity and courage, and stood where he was with his hands clasped in front of him, as though in prayer, with his eyes closed, and a look of calm about him.

Tears filled Harry's eyes, as he looked at Albus Dumbledore's face, and thought of the terrible night of his mentor's last battle…

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_**One Year and a Half Ago; Hogwarts:**_

_When the world went mad, Harry Potter was sitting through a double-potions class with the Slytherins. He'd often prayed for something, anything, to interrupt the torture and get him out of there. (The overthrow of the Ministry of Magic wasn't quite what he'd had in mind, though.)_

_Snape was lecturing his students about what utter failures they were as potion makers when the headmaster's voice echoed through the castle. "All students return to your common rooms immediately. This is an emergency! All students, report to your common rooms. All faculty, report to the faculty meeting room." The potions-master frowned in apparent irritation, and then turned to face his students._

"_All of you will return to your common rooms, immediately. Do not deviate from that course. Anyone caught out of bounds will be suspended at the very least. Go."_

_They went. Some were simply relieved to be out of Snape's presence, but several of the Gryffindor students talked quietly as they walked, speculating about the nature of the emergency._

"_Has to be Voldemort," Harry insisted. "He's been quiet for far too long."_

"_Most likely," Hermione agreed. "All the Order has been able to find are indications that he has been rebuilding his forces, but there's been no hint of his plans."_

"_We should try to find out what's going on," Ron said. "It's not like the professors are going to tell us." His suggestion met with nods from the other two, and they let themselves drift to the back of the line of students heading for the Gryffindor common room._

_Harry reached into the magically expanded pouch he kept at his waist, and pulled out the invisibility cloak. The pouch had been a Christmas gift from Sirius, and Harry had found an incredible number of uses for it, especially as his godfather had laid on a charm that kept others from noticing it._

_A moment later, they were making their way towards the faculty meeting room. The three were getting too big to fit under it together, but they managed to traverse the distance without too much effort._

"_Glad they aren't meeting in Dumbledore's office," Ron commented. "We'd never get to spy on them without getting noticed, but Fred and George showed me this place where ya can hear everything; grades, patrol routes, test answers…"_

"_Ronald Weasley," Hermione hissed disapprovingly, but Harry shushed them both as they drew close to their destination._

_At Ron's direction, they slipped into an adjacent room, and Ron took out his wand. "There's a spot where the silencing charm's gotten weak. Fred and George showed me a spell to take advantage of that. You have to be quiet, though, 'cause they'll be able to hear us, too." He cast an unfamiliar charm on a particular spot in the wall between themselves and the staff room, and the voices came through as clearly as if they were standing right in front of them._

"_-confirmed. The Ministry has fallen, but according to the few who escaped, it was not Voldemort who led the attack. They claim to have overheard their attackers referring to someone they called their queen."_

"_Queen?" Snape asked in a puzzled tone._

"_Indeed. I'm as puzzled as you, Severus. They were quite clear, though. A woman led the attack, someone who the Death Eaters acknowledge as their master, and who they fear as much as they do Voldemort."_

"_The Death Eaters were following another?"_

"_Bellatrix Lestrange," Snape guessed, naming the only person he knew of who might fit the description, however unlikely it seemed._

"_She is still in prison," Dumbledore disagreed, confirming what he already knew, "and Voldemort has never been one for sharing power, or for titles for that matter. I can't see him declaring himself King either."_

"_Nor I," said Snape after a moment. "We need more information."_

"_Excuse me," Professor Sprout interrupted, "but has anyone seen Professor White?"_

"_She informed me last night that she had urgent business in London today, but would return in time for afternoon classes," Dumbledore said, sounding worried._

"_Oh, dear. I do hope she's not caught up in this terrible business at the Ministry," the Herbology professor fretted._

"_Regardless of her circumstances," Dumbledore told the group, "Hogwarts is the next most likely target. We must ready our defences and prepare to evacuate the students in the event those defences fail." He began handing out assignments, efficiently divvying up the tasks that needed to be accomplished before the expected attack_

"_What of the students, Headmaster?" Professor McGonagall asked. "Some of them will want to stand and fight."_

"_All students, fifth year and above, will have that option. The rest will be put in the Room of Requirement for their own safety. A secure exit from there to Hogsmeade and points beyond has been arranged."_

_After that, they went into the minutia of their defence plans, and Ron cancelled the spell. They all looked at each other, openly baffled. Finally, Hermione spoke. "A queen? Who do you suppose it could be?"_

_The others shook their heads, equally puzzled. "If it's not Lestrange," Harry ventured, "who else could it be?" No one had an answer._

"_We'll likely find out soon enough," Ron pointed out. "Dumbledore did say that Hogwarts was the next likely target."_

"_True enough," Harry nodded. "Let's get ready to meet whoever it is and worry about the details later."_

_They drew on the invisibility cloak and went to their common room behind their Head of House. There were some smirks from the other students, as the three removed the invisibility cloak and slipped into the crowd of students surrounding Professor McGonagall who had just arrived._

_The professor gave her students the highlights from the meeting. It surprised Harry how much she revealed, which was almost everything she knew and didn't know about the situation. Speculation began immediately._

"_Probably Professor White," one student offered. "She seems like someone who'd try to conquer the world."_

"_Naw," another answered. "It's probably Snape. With that long hair, someone could mistake him for-"_

"_AHEM!" the deputy headmistress interrupted as others began to laugh. "This is a serious matter. We haven't time for joking." She passed on the headmaster's instructions, and roughly three-quarters of the students allowed to fight agreed to join the defence of the castle. The others were assigned to getting the younger students out safely._

_Nearly all of the non-combatants had been led into the Room of Requirement when the announcement came that the enemy was approaching. Harry, Ron and Hermione were among the first to reach the Great Hall where the defence was being organized._

_Dumbledore placed groups of students at points along the castle wall so they could support the staff from a distance and still be out of the main fight. They could only watch as the staff made their own preparations._

_Stone gargoyles, suits of armour and animated furniture moved at the Transfiguration Professor's commands. She formed them into ranks, and prepared to send them into battle._

_Flitwick was moving along the ward line near the outer wall of the school, casting a series of silent charms as he went. Hermione watched him closely, but could only make educated guesses about what he was doing._

_There was barely enough time to prepare, though. All too soon a series of distant cracks, the tell-tale sign of Apparition, were heard, and figures could be seen appearing outside Hogwarts' defensive line. Dumbledore approached the wards from the inside._

_If he was surprised to see Jadis White at the head of the attacking force, he didn't show it. She was at the lead of her army, attacking with a new wand, which had the form of a crystal-like sceptre, and a sword at her side._

_Jadis had spent months creating her new wand, which she had made through the mystical craft known only on her home world._

"_Miss White," he addressed her, dropping the title of Professor, as he was meticulous about that particular protocol, and it obviously no longer applied. "I am…disappointed. What precisely are your intentions here?"_

"_If that isn't obvious to the 'greatest wizard of the age,'" Jadis mocked, "then the magical folk of this world are more pathetic than even I realized."_

"_Your plans will end here," Dumbledore informed her. "You cannot breach Hogwarts' defences, and the Auror corps will be sending reinforcements soon enough."_

"_What few of them I left alive," Jadis answered, "are under my control. As to your defences…do you really think I wouldn't have studied them in the months I lived here?" She raised her wand that seemed to vibrate with magical energy, and spoke a single word in an unfamiliar language._

_Hogwarts itself seemed to shake, as whatever spell she cast took effect. The shimmering barrier that kept the enemy outside the castle fizzled and vanished. "Your ward stones are gone," she informed the shocked Headmaster. "Not merely the barrier, but the wards preventing Apparition as well."_

_Cloaked figures began to appear inside, even as McGonagall ordered her forces into battle. The statues, suits of armour and furniture were all sturdily made, and managed to slow the attack, but they were also slow moving and fairly predictable in their actions, which meant that slowing the attackers was all they could do._

_Harry, Ron, Hermione and half-a-dozen others stayed at their spots on the wall, throwing spells at the enemy from a distance. The stunners, jinxes and minor hexes didn't do much more than sew confusion in the enemy ranks, but that bought others critical time to defend themselves._

_A group of Death Eaters led by Yaxley found themselves bombarded with these spells, leaving them little time to defend against the more dangerous attacks of the staff. Dividing their attention left them vulnerable, and when Rowle fell on his face, courtesy of a Leg Locker curse fired from above, none of the others were not in time to prevent a table from stomping on his skull, shattering it._

_The table was promptly reduced to splinters, as were several other pieces of rampaging furniture. Yaxley was so distracted that he barely avoided a rather vicious spell from Flitwick. The small charms teacher drove him and several others back single-handed._

_On the outer wall, Dumbledore found himself hard pressed fighting Jadis. She was proving a remarkably skilled opponent for one so young. Barely in her 30s by her looks, she fought with the skill and tenacity of a veteran Auror. Her magical power was nothing to underestimate either. Several times, his shield charm had barely held. She seemed inexhaustible, and he was finding himself tiring after a while._

_Her spells were creative, to say the least. The former professor had used several spells the headmaster didn't recognize. None of them did pleasant things to the objects or people they struck._

_He tried to keep up a conversation with her, hoping to reason with or at least distract her, but she scoffed at his efforts and pressed him harder. The only respite he got was when Jadis noticed how her forces were being balked._

_A quick glance showed him Minerva holding her own against a large force; sending armour, furniture and bits of the courtyard occasionally to attack the enemy force. Jadis nodded approvingly._

"_That one is a true warrior," the witch acknowledged. "Worthy of respect, unlike her master." She staggered Dumbledore with a vicious curse that nearly overwhelmed his shields. She then turned to the Deputy Headmistress. "I think I'll add her to my collection." A single spell punched through Minerva's hastily raised shield, freezing the look of anger and determination on her face permanently._

"_NO!" Dumbledore shouted, staring in shock at the statue that had been his friend for over 50 years. He renewed his attack on Jadis, determined to end it quickly so he could help Minerva._

_He succeeded in surprising her, and drove her back for a time, finding his second wind and new motivation. His spells grew more deadly. He hated violence, and especially hated using lethal force, but people were dying, and Jadis' defeat would likely end the battle._

_Although surprised, Jadis soon recovered and turned the tables, falling back more quickly and leading the suddenly hopeful Headmaster into a trap. She allowed her defence to grow sloppy, and dodged more spells than she blocked. Despite his years of experience, the hard fight to that point made this sudden faltering seem genuine. _

_He saw her dodge binding hexes, blasting curses, and barely avoided an attempt to transfigure her clothing into ropes. Each attack forced her back, putting her on the defensive._

_Jadis could practically smell the overconfidence. To make a better show of it till the right opening appeared, she drew her newly created stone knife, an exact copy of the one she'd favoured in Narnia. It had been charmed to be unbreakable, and to turn all but the most powerful spells aside. She stopped her retreat, but Dumbledore only pressed her harder. Coming slowly, inexorably within range._

_Striking snake-quick, she lashed out with her stone knife and with her wand, striking his own from his grasp as he tried to avoid her blade. "A decent effort," Jadis allowed. "Perhaps I'll add you to my collection after all." A simple gesture sent him staggering back, as he tried a wand-less summoning charm. _

_She stepped on his wand to prevent another such effort. The magic in his wand was stronger than any of the others she had seen and tested in this world, but it was still a pitiful make compared to hers._

_She raised her own wand. "Good-bye, Headmaster."_

_Jadis had seen countless opponents face death at her hands. Some pleaded, some cursed her, and some stared in numb shock, unable to believe what was happening. Dumbledore did none of these things._

_He drew himself up straight and met her gaze unafraid. There was a calm acceptance on his face that she couldn't account for. He calmly folded his hands as if in prayer and closed his eyes. He seemed perfectly calm. _

_Jadis' hesitated for only a second, surprised at the reaction, and then she turned him into stone._

_OOOOOOOOOO_

_From their place on the battlements, Harry, Ron and Hermione saw McGonagall's defeat. The transfigured army she'd been directing faltered and began to settle into their original state, becoming nothing more than a minor obstacle to Jadis' forces._

"_We have to go," Hermione said after a moment. "Harry! Ron! We have to go! Get to the Room of Requirement and get everyone out!"_

_Ron nodded and turned to Harry. "She's right. We can't do anything more here. Dumbledore will handle Jadis, and this'll all be over, but until then we have to get everyone to safety."_

_Harry stood where he was for a second, staring in numb shock at McGonagall's now stone form, but quickly nodded and followed them._

_They rushed inside and down the stairs, collecting people as they went. The spells barring the main doors were failing rapidly under the constant bombardment from outside, and they knew there wasn't much time._

"_This is what Dumbledore and…McGonagall would want us to do," Harry told everyone with a reluctant hitch in his voice. "They'd want us to keep the students safe."_

_The others followed his lead, and the students that had stayed to fight, with or without permission, were soon moving through the secret passage to the Hog's Head. There they had waited for word of Dumbledore's inevitable victory. _

_It never came._

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**Present:**

Harry blinked back the tears, staring at the statue, as he recalled that night. He remembered how everyone had gone to the Hog's Head. He remembered the tears a lot of people had shed that night and how scared and confused they had all been. In one night, the entire wizarding community of Britain had been attacked and conquered, as had Hogwarts.

He hadn't known that Jadis had been the one behind it all, not until a good few hours later, when his godfather Sirius had arrived. He had heard about the attack on the school, and had hurried there as fast as he could.

When Hermione had first seen him, she had started going off at him about being out in the open, and risking capture. But, as it turned out, her fears were for nothing. Sirius no longer had any qualms about being captured anymore, as the Ministry no longer existed. Jadis had destroyed it all, and the ones who had survived had either fled and were now currently in hiding, or they had all surrendered unconditionally.

Sirius had first gone to the school, and had arrived just as Jadis and her army were going through it, clearing out the dead bodies, and collecting any of the magical talismans leftover. He had barely managed to escape with his life. Fortunately, he was able to escape, and make his way to the Hog's Head, where he had guessed everyone would be hiding, but he hadn't seen Dumbledore.

After they had been reunited, wept bitter tears, and talked, the identity of their true enemy was finally revealed. The Death Eaters were indeed following a new leader now. No one knew what had become of Voldemort, and they didn't find out until several days later when Jadis began addressing the British population, announcing her intentions and all that she had done.

Harry remembered the number of dropped jaws, his own included, when Jadis said she had defeated and destroyed Voldemort, followed by the hysteria after Jadis then said she had defeated Dumbledore as well. No one believed her, himself most of all, but in the months that followed with no sign of him; they all came to the same terrible conclusion that Jadis had been telling the truth.

Harry looked deep into the stone Dumbledore's eyes. He was no fool, as he had known long before now that Dumbledore had to be dead, and yet…there had been a part of him that had still hoped that maybe that wasn't the case. That maybe he was still alive somewhere, biding his time, getting ready to fight back, and he hadn't revealed himself because he didn't want anyone to come to harm.

It had been a fruitless and maybe stupid hope, Harry knew that, but it had been one of the few things that had kept him going. Now, like everything else, it was gone.

Under the invisibility cloak, Harry's face took on a dark look of rage. 'Gone…all gone,' he thought miserably.

He wanted to scream and shout, but he knew there was no time for that now. Not when everything was at stake.

Swallowing his anger, Harry turned and walked out of the Great Hall, and started to make his way up to what had once been the Headmaster's Office, but was now Jadis' private study.

**To Be Continued…**


	6. Chapter 6

**First Lesson**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Jadis' Castle; Present:**

Jadis walked down one of the many hallways of her castle, occasionally eyeing the new portraits that she herself had decorated the walls with. She had had the old ones pulled down and burned on a bonfire (she particularly remembered enjoying listening to the screams of one Sir Cadogan, a rather mad and positively deluded painted knight who had irritated her to no end during her time as a teacher).

After the portraits were all disposed of, she had had them replaced with new ones that depicted the ancient monarchs of her home world. She had been able to resurrect her ancestor's images from her own memory, which she had done thanks to Dumbledore's Pensieve.

After taking the castle, and all of Dumbledore's former possessions, she had learned about the Pensieve and many other such talismans. Once she had mastered it, she had observed her own memories from back on Charn, taken note of her family's forms, and then recreated them on living canvases. She couldn't make them full living paintings, not from mere memory, but that was fine with her. Instead, she had given them enough life so that they could watch from their frames, and keep a lookout for any intruders, thieves, spies or such in her home.

She had never been able to recreate them in Narnia, but then she had never really thought about them much since leaving Charn, which was probably due to Aslan's curse. In truth, since she had reclaimed her former lost emotions of joy and glee, thanks to the magical stone in her ring, she was beginning to experience various feelings she had long since forgotten. One such feeling was that of nostalgia for her home world.

Not that she ever regretted doing what she did during the war with her sister, perish the thought. It was war, and she had merely done what she had to, to ensure final victory over her sister, and to prove her absolute supremacy. But there were times when she missed seeing the red glow of her world's sun, smelling the scent of her favourite flower that bloomed on Charn's high mountains, and hearing the sacrificial drums beating from her city's temples.

That was all partly why she had altered this castle's appearance so. The sight of her ancestor's faces once more looking out at her, and even Charn's sky, which she had formed in the Great Hall's ceiling, made this place feel a lot more like home than her ice castle in Narnia ever did.

She passed by one of countless rooms, including the former Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, where she had given her first and last lessons.

The room was more or less untouched. There were, after all, numerous rooms in this castle; even more than her castle in Narnia or her ancestral home on Charn had ever had, so there were still a lot of them to go through. There were far more rooms than even she knew what to do with really, though she did consider maybe turning that classroom into a torture chamber.

As she passed by, she couldn't help reminiscing about the day when she had taught her first lesson in that room. She had wanted to start the children off with something simple, but she had been…unprepared, to say the least, to teach human children.

She had learned that day that humans were a lot more fragile and weaker than even she had anticipated.

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_**Hogwarts; 2 Years Ago:**_

_Jadis had decided to throw herself into the role of teacher. While it was true it was only a means to an end, it served her purposes in several ways. She needed to assess the abilities of the Wizards as she learned their magic. Teaching their young would give her an excellent gauge of their potential as soldiers and as slaves. There was also the need to maintain her cover, and that would not be served by doing a poor job._

_She had reviewed the previous years' lessons, and had been shocked and disgusted by the quality of the instructors. One had been a dithering fool that had allowed Voldemort to feed on him like a leech. The second had been an utter fraud playing at being a hero. He had taught them nothing of value, and had ended up erasing his own memory. The third had known his subject but been far too weak willed to teach them anything useful. The last, one of Voldemort's spies, had been only slightly more acceptable. He had known his subject, but his lessons had been barely acceptable._

_If the children of this world were to someday serve her, she would have to ensure they were properly trained. That training, she decided, would begin today. _

_She opened the door to her classroom and moved to the front, to double-check the preparations. On the table sat five boxes. Drawing her wand, she assessed the condition of each box and its contents, and after finding everything in order, she turned to the rest of her preparations._

_It was only a few minutes later that the students began to arrive. This was a fifth year class, Gryffindor and Slytherin. She waited silently, as they found their seats, only mildly impatient with the chatter of a few of the denser members of the class. When most of them had their seats, she stepped forward. _

"_Silence!"_

_The few who had been talking gave her their attention. _

"_I am Professor White. It is my duty here to teach you to defend yourselves against your enemies and against hostile magic in general. I've reviewed your education to date and found it wholly inadequate. Beginning today, expect much more challenging lessons. You will learn those lessons well or there will be consequences." She noticed several of the students exchanging looks. "I'm not talking about bad grades. If the Headmaster is correct, a war looms in your future. A war in which some of you may be called to fight. A Death Eater will not give you a poor grade for not producing a strong enough shield. He will kill you. Is that sufficient consequence to hold your interest?" _

_She looked directly at two of the Slytherin students who'd looked rather bored at her claim, but they had focused their full attention on her now. "Good," she added._

_Many of the students were looking a little shocked that she had mentioned the war, as many of the wizarding community were still denying it even as a possibility. Hell, the Ministry of Magic was doing everything in its power to try and crush the rumours, and even forbade some people to even mention it. They still wouldn't even admit that Voldemort was back, even though he wasn't, not anymore thanks to her, but they didn't know that, and despite Harry Potter having seen his resurrection first-hand, everyone was calling him a liar._

'_Such idiots these human wizards are,' she thought, but continued with the lesson. "One of the key skills you must learn to ensure your survival, let alone success, is the ability to detect malicious magic and intention. There is a simple spell that, if properly used, may well save your life, or at least spare you a great deal of pain."_

_She saw that she had their full attention now, and pressed forward. "The incantation and wand movement are simple to learn, but it requires practice. You will learn it today if you wish to avoid unpleasant consequences. Is that understood?"_

_The smirks were back, from some of the Slytherin students. "Take out your wands," she told them, knowing those smirks would disappear soon enough. "Copy the movement I show you exactly." She moved her wand so that the tip described a perfect circle, and then drew an odd pattern of lines within it before raising the tip to a point between her eyes. "Maleficium Revelio!"_

_The students watched, as her eyes briefly glowed with a clear inner light before turning to the boxes on the table and nodding. "I now know which of these boxes is safe to open." She looked back at the class. "Do you?"_

_Looks of uncertainty passed over the faces of some of the more sensible students. A blonde Slytherin boy actually rolled his eyes, but she managed to hold her temper with an effort. The little fool would learn the hard way, which should prove instructive for the rest of the class_

"_Take out your wands and show me the movement I just demonstrated." They complied and Jadis watched with irritation. "NO! Your movements must be precise or the spell will fail. Watch me again." She repeated the movement slowly for them. "Now. Try again."_

_Some of them improved, and she decided it was time for a volunteer. She was about to call on the blonde Slytherin when a bushy-haired Gryffindor raised her hand. "Are you volunteering?"_

"_Yes, professor."_

"_Your name?"_

"_Hermione Granger, Professor."_

_Jadis motioned for her to come forward. "Show me the wand movement once more," she ordered when the girl stood before her. Hermione did so. "Adequate," she allowed. "The incantation is Maleficium Revelio. Be exact in your pronunciation."_

"_Yes, professor." She turned to face the boxes and moved her wand precisely as instructed. "Maleficium Revelio." She spent a moment looking over the boxes, and then reached out and opened the second from the left. It was empty._

"_Very good, Miss Granger. Take your seat." When the girl had done so, Jadis scanned the room and explained a few of the finer points of the spell, emphasizing the need for precision, before asking, "Now who will be next?" She focused on the blonde Slytherin boy. "You. What is your name?"_

"_Draco Malfoy," he answered, obviously believing the name would be important to her in some way. She did indeed recognise his last name, as it was the same of one of the former Death Eaters who had been present at Voldemort's resurrection and final death, and had also been one of the first, if not thee first, who had sworn allegiance to her. This boy was obviously his son, as they had the same coloured hair, as well as the same arrogant tone that made her want to smite him right there._

_She found his father to be a coward, used to living on the best of everything, not done one single day of physical work or anything involving no magic, and only allied himself with whoever had the most power at the time. So it was no surprise that he had been the first to forget his so-called master and throw himself at her feet. If she hadn't needed all the followers she could get, she would have turned him to stone right then and there. However, she had made a mental note that when the time came for the coming battle, she would make sure to put Lucius Malfoy at the frontline._

_This boy seemed an exact duplicate of his father, giving a perfect example of the old saying; the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He didn't know who she truly was, as she had sworn all her followers to secrecy, on the penalty of death._

"_Come here, Malfoy. Let's see if you are deserving of your arrogance."_

_The boy scowled at her tone, and at some of the sniggering her words had caused from the class, but did as he was told and approached the table. With a wave of her wand, the boxes on the table suddenly blurred together before separating into five identical boxes again. Malfoy glanced at her._

"_Demonstrate the spell for us, Mr Malfoy."_

_Malfoy performed the wand movements and spoke the words. Nothing seemed to happen, and he stared at the boxes in consternation._

"_The circle must be precise, Mr Malfoy. Try again."_

_He did so, and seemed to get a better response. He examined the boxes again, but seemed almost as confused as before._

"_Focus," Jadis advised. "You will be able to perceive the difference with the proper mind-set."_

_After a moment, Malfoy smirked and reached for the box on the far left. He worked the catch and flipped up the lid. Then he screamed. Dropping his wand as he fell to his knees, he clutched his left hand, on which all four fingers had been bent backwards until they had snapped._

"_Bone Breaker Curse," Jadis explained. "A minor curse as a suitable lesson for you. Return to your seat."_

_He gaped at her, as did the rest of the class, still clutching his hand._

"_After class, I will mend them or you may see the school healer. In the meantime, let the pain serve as a reminder that money and privilege will not protect you from everything. You will have to actually learn the material in my class if you wish to pass, let alone get out of it in one piece." She gestured imperiously. Draco managed to get to his feet and stagger back toward his seat. It didn't even occur to him to disobey her and head for Madam Pomfrey immediately._

_Jadis turned back to her shocked students. "He's paid a small price for his mistake. Those who work as professional curse breakers will tell you, a mistake like that on the job can be fatal. Now, who is next?" There were no volunteers. She waited for only a few seconds before picking a student at random._

_Dean Thomas carefully repeated the wand movement and enunciated the spell precisely, and at first he thought he had chosen correctly. Then he doubled over and lost his breakfast on the floor._

"_Nausea Curse," Jadis explained. "I believe some of you use it for pranks. Do you know the counter-curse?" Dean shakily drew his wand and cast it on himself. After two tries, he finally got a result. Jadis swallowed her irritation at the delay. Such a minor spell would have been a mere irritation for one of her people. Humans, it seemed, were more fragile than she had realized._

_He was not entirely successful, but the worst of the symptoms abated. "A good effort," Jadis allowed. "Return to your seat. When the lesson is over, if you haven't managed it more effectively, I'll cast it myself. No one may help him," she added, looking at the class._

_Her next victim was Pansy Parkinson who surprised everyone by performing the spell correctly and opening an empty box. "Good, Miss Parkinson. Take your seat."_

_The next person she called up was Ron Weasley. He approached the front of the class with trepidation, not wanting to be anywhere near the mad witch or her cursed boxes, but he wasn't about to find out what she'd do if he refused. He stopped several paces from the boxes and did his best to copy what he had seen while focusing on what he wanted to accomplish._

_He blinked in surprise, as the boxes seemed to react to the spell. Each now looked different to him in a way he couldn't quite define. He took a hesitant step forward and examined each one more closely. After a moment, he made his choice and reached out to open the box on the far right._

_He immediately jumped back, making some of the other students snicker. It turned out to be a wise move, though, as a spider the size of his fist clamoured out of the box and began to grow._

_The class erupted in chaos, as students scrambled for the exits. Jadis watched impassively as the young Acromantula, which had stopped growing at roughly the size of a cocker-spaniel, leaped at Ron who gave a high-pitched shriek and dodged out of the way. Several of the students fired spells at the creature ineffectively. They all missed, the casters either too frightened to aim properly or jostled by panicked classmates._

_Jadis watched the scene with growing disgust. Apparently, they were incapable of dealing even with this minor threat. Some of the students pleaded for her to get rid of it, but she ignored them._

"_Threats to your life may come in many forms," Jadis lectured calmly, as a lucky spell knocked the creature back. "You must be prepared to face it. If you cannot prevail against so minor a threat, I don't hold out much hope for your survival in the war the Headmaster believes is coming."_

_The Acromantula seemed momentarily at a loss, as if unsure which of the savoury morsels to pursue. "You've made your point!" Granger called from the struggling mass of students near the door. "Do you really think dead students will make it any clearer? The Headmaster won't think so."_

_Jadis scowled. The girl had a point. Albus Dumbledore was as soft as any of them, and he would not take kindly to the death of any of the school's students. She still needed Hogwarts and all of the research opportunities it offered._

_Repressing a sigh of irritation at the students' weakness and incompetence, she drew a small knife from the sleeve of her robe, and spoke a single word that caused it to grow in her hand, resuming its normal size, and revealed it to be a long sword. The sword's edge glinted, as she stepped between the Acromantula and her students, attracting its attention. A casual swing caused the creature to skitter back, giving her more room to work._

_Acromantulas, even young ones, could be dangerous. They were fast, strong and reasonably clever. However, in the wild, their greatest advantage was their pack behaviour. They tended to overwhelm prey with sheer numbers, working as a cohesive unit, like a pack of wolves. A single young one was no threat to her, and should have been no threat to these fifth year students, had they kept their heads._

_It leaped at her, and Jadis sidestepped, lopping off a portion of two of its legs and leaving a shallow gash in its flank. It made a high-pitched hissing noise, and turned to face her as best as it could. Evaluating her more carefully this time, the creature made a feint to the left before leaping high._

_Jadis ignored the feint and rolled under the actual attack, scoring a hit to the beast's underside. She rolled to her feet and whipped around to face it. Before the Acromantula could recover, she moved forward in what looked like a blur to her students, neatly stabbing the creature, centre-mass, before yanking the hilt to one side, shredding the creature's internal organs. The Acromantula shuddered and died without a sound._

_Pulling her blade out of the giant spider's corpse and cleaning it with a simple charm, she turned to face her students. "Pathetic," she told them, taking in their slack-jawed stares. "You panic at the mere sight of such a minor threat?"_

"_Professor?" the Granger girl asked from her spot near the door jammed with students. "Why didn't you use your wand?"_

"_I did not need a wand, and if you learn your lessons well and apply yourself, neither will you."_

"_Y-you expect us to learn to fight like muggles?" Malfoy asked, some of his arrogance showing through the pain from his broken fingers._

"_A wizard or witch that relies solely on a wand is vulnerable. If you are separated from it during a battle, you will die. If you know how to defend yourself without a wand, you have a chance." She glanced around the room. "Dependence is weakness, and I do not tolerate weakness." _

_She looked expectantly at her students. "Why are you standing around? Return to your seats! Class isn't over."_

_OOOOOOOOOO_

_Later that day, after two first -year classes had been terrified by somewhat less gruelling lessons, Jadis had been called to the Headmaster's office. The conversation had convinced her that the man was as foolish as any of the wizards._

"_Please come in, Professor White," the old man had called as she approached the door. She entered without a visible reaction. Wards alerting him to the identity of his visitors before they even knocked might be a trick that impressed children, but Jadis knew how to make such things herself, and she knew ways around them._

"_You wished to see me, Headmaster?"_

"_Yes." The old man sat back in his chair, his expression grave. "I have received reports that your first lessons were…unorthodox."_

"_It was a straightforward lesson in detecting malign magic and the consequences of failure."_

"_Young Malfoy suffered four broken fingers, which you insisted he wait until after class before treating."_

"_The pain will reinforce the lesson. Unless he is entirely hopeless, he will do better next time."_

"_And the Acromantula?" the old man asked in a deceptively mild voice._

"_Such a young beast was hardly a threat," she said smoothly. "The students need to learn not to panic when confronted with a challenge. Any one of them could have dispatched the beast had they kept their heads."_

"_While there is merit to your argument," he allowed, "they are still students here, and are to be protected. If you again deliberately place your students in harm's way, you will be immediately dismissed from Hogwarts. Is that understood?"_

"_Do you wish your students to survive the coming war with Voldemort?"_

"_They are too young," he answered evenly. "If all goes as planned, it will be over before they have to fight."_

"_How often do wars go as planned?" she asked mildly, while hiding a smirk. "I would prepare them to face the rigours of the real world, and the real world can be ugly and painful."_

"_Be that as it may, Hogwarts is meant to be safe. You will follow my directives in this or you will be seeking new employment. I ask you again, Professor White; is that understood?"_

"_Understood, headmaster," Jadis had managed to keep the sneer out of her voice at the old man's obvious weakness. Coddling the young only led to a weak-willed and unprepared population. If this were typical of the education the wizarding populace had received, they would be child's play to conquer. Jadis almost found the prospect disappointing._

**To Be Continued…**


	7. Chapter 7

**The Great Hunt**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Jadis' Castle; Present:**

Jadis' walk had now brought her to the south side of the castle, where she could see out of the windows onto the courtyard. She eyed the many statues that now decorated the place, their number even greater than what she had had back in Narnia.

They were mostly humans, from the first day of her conquest, but there were also various resistance fighters that had tried fighting her since. There were also a number of creatures that she had hunted down, like the odd Acromantula and Manticore that had been stupid enough to attack her, to the giant brother of that idiot half-giant Hagrid.

And then there were the Centaurs…

She smiled, as she remembered the day when she had first started what would be her great hunt. Although the Centaurs on this world weren't like the ones that had stood against her in Narnia, as these preferred not to involve themselves in any of the human's wars, unlike the Narnian Centaurs who had been eager to do so, but she hadn't wanted to take the chance.

There had definitely been some similarities between the two cultures, though, which had been enough to make her worry and want to deal with them as soon as possible. Plus, Centaurs could foresee certain events of the future.

She had ignited the hunt long before her attack on the Ministry, back when she had still been a teacher at Hogwarts. It had been a large risk, but at the time she had felt it necessary, as with their gifts of divination the Centaurs could undo everything she was planning before it had even begun.

That and the chance to get revenge on the same species as the one that had defied and fought her in Narnia, had been more than enough incentive.

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_**One Year and a Half Ago;**_

_**Forbidden Forest:**_

_Jadis trampled through the forest growth, wishing that she had her old sleigh. This forest was even worse than the woods of Narnia!_

_She could have come by broom, or even Apparated, but if she had done either then the wards of Hogwarts would have been tripped, alerting the headmaster, and she needed to do this quickly and secretly._

_She knew she was taking a big risk by coming here tonight, but she felt that it was necessary. Centaurs had been one of the species that had given her the most problems in Narnia, and she couldn't risk the same happening here on this world, too, especially since the fools in the Ministry had been aggravating them._

_She had heard that the Ministry had been restricting the Centaur's territory, infuriating them to no end. The angrier those nags got, the more chance there was that they might decide to one day wage war on the wizards, and she couldn't risk that, not with her day of conquest so close._

_With all the chaos there already was in this world, she found it unbelievable that the Ministry could be so stupid as to make more enemies. Did they honestly think that the Centaurs were going to stand by and let the wizards walk over them with no consequences? She had never met the Centaurs of this world, yet she knew enough by reputation that they were a proud and fierce race, and not known for giving up anything without a fight. Jadis saw this as yet another example of how dysfunctional and chaotic this world really was, and what desperate need it was in for a strong leader…like her._

_She had sent word to some of her followers to come join her in the forest as soon as they were able, but without the use of Apparition. Although the months she had spent at Hogwarts had taught her much, including a way to bypass the wards that prevented Apparating, she did not want to take the risk. If she removed the spells, she could expose herself too soon, and she did not want that until the time was right._

_She would just have to deal with the situation as best as she could until they arrived. Then again, from what she had observed, she would probably be better off dealing with this alone. These mages were still so dependent on their magic, it was pathetic._

_The hardest part so far had been getting out of the school. The moment she did, she had come face to face with that oversized hybrid, Hagrid. He had bumped into her on the way out, and had immediately started his usual cheerful and non-stop chattering. He always did that with everyone, but with her he was especially persistent. (She suspected he was attracted to her.)_

_He had been away when she first came to Hogwarts. He claimed to be away on holiday, though she suspected he had been looking to acquire allies among the giants of this world. She knew it had been a wasted journey, as she had already secured their loyalty to her months ago. Turns out the giants weren't too fond of the idea of being made stone anymore than the other creatures._

_Hagrid had once asked her what side she had got it from. She hadn't known what he meant at first, but he was referring to her giant-side. Because of her height, he had assumed, and quite rightly, that she had giant blood in her. When he had revealed what he meant, she had naturally confirmed his suspicions. Why wouldn't she? She was rightly proud of her heritage._

_When Hagrid had told her how people of giant lineage were often scorned at and looked down upon, she felt like laughing and screaming at the same time. What was it with this world?!_

_Hagrid may be an idiot, but his giant blood gave him incredible size and strength, making him beyond all those pitifully weak humans. They should be the ones bowing down to him, not the other way around! But then again, she could understand how people could get frustrated with him and his kind._

_Neither the giants of this world, or of Narnia, had been anything like the noble giants of Charn, from whom she was descended, known for their great strength and cunning. Legend had it that once their race had lived on Charn together with another species called the Jinn, and over time the two races had interbred, resulting in the birth of a new one, with the giant's strength and warrior spirit, and the Jinn's magic and innate beauty, among which the most powerful of all had been her ancestors._

_She had then made up some half-true story about her ancestors being giants, but unfortunately, by doing so and confirming her heritage, Hagrid now seemed to be positively smitten with her. Apparently, he hadn't met many other giant hybrids, except for one who refused to acknowledge it. Since then, she had been finding flowers on her desk, and continuous offers to walk with her, one of which had been for tonight._

_Luckily, she had been able to convince him that she was going to bed, and managed to shake him off, telling him she was just taking a midnight stroll before going to sleep, and preferred walking alone. He had been disappointed, but finally had bid her goodnight and left._

_Jadis had fumed, and had made a promise that among all the wizards and creatures there on Hogwarts' staff; Hagrid would be amongst the first to decorate her castle as one of its first stone ornaments. After they were separated, she had immediately made her way out of the castle, and over to the forest. As it turned out, she didn't have to travel far into the forest before she met them._

_Jadis walked on, and before long…an arrow flew right by her head, landing menacingly in a tree above her head. When she looked over, she felt the earth tremble beneath her, as nearly fifty Centaurs came emerging from all sides._

"_Who are you?" said a chestnut coloured Centaur, as he came forward with his bow raised and aimed at her._

_She smiled. At least these creatures weren't so magically dependant, and showed at least some warrior spirit. "I am Jadis; empress of the now dead world of Charn, former queen of Narnia, and future ruler of this world. I come seeking an audience with the leader of this tribe…herd…or whatever it is you Centaurs call yourselves."_

_The Centaur she addressed pawed the ground seemingly in outrage at being spoken to, but he made no move to attack. "I am Magorian, leader of this herd. What do you want here?"_

"_I have come to make you an offer. The day of my conquest of this world approaches, and I need to find true allies whom I can depend upon. You Centaurs are known to be amongst the finest of all warriors, if not thee finest, this world has to offer. Together with your knowledge in divination, I would consider you my most valued allies." Part of that was true, yet she had no desire to leave any of them alive. Once she had them where she wanted, she would strike._

_Magorian looked at her for a moment, and then up at the sky. "Mars is bright," he said, looking thoughtful. "It looks far brighter than it has ever done before. It has been so all summer, since the day when news of the dark one's resurrection came to us. Yet something is different." He paused and looked hard at her. "We always knew the dark one would return, and that one day a young wizard would someday battle and defeat him, but now…now, it all grows dim. The fate we once foretold has now vanished, as if it had never been, and a new one is upon us. The stars show us a future even darker than the one before. One of death not just for the humans, but…for us as well."_

_She thinned her eyes at him. "I offer you life, Centaur. Join me if you wish for a future for you and your kind."_

"_You dare threaten us, human!" shouted a wild looking black Centaur, who neighed loudly and charged at her._

"_Bane, no!" Magorian yelled, but by then it was too late._

_Jadis reached behind her back, pulling out one of the two weapons she had brought with her from the castle, which was her wand, and, just as Bane charged up to her, she struck out her wand, its crystal tip barely touching the beast, and lit up with a sparkling blue light._

_It all happened so fast that one Centaur had actually missed it by blinking. One moment he had been watching his fellow Centaur charge a taunting witch, and the next, when he blinked, it was all over. Where their brother had once stood, there now stood a large grey statue of Bane, perfectly detailed to the last hoof._

"_I…" Jadis said finally, wiping her brow "am no human!"_

_Magorian wailed at the loss of his brother Centaur, and then glared murderously at her. "You may have your magic to protect you, witch! But we are many, and you are but one!"_

_Jadis laughed. "What need I for magic to defeat mere half-breeds such as you?" And, with a casual flip, she dropped her wand to the ground, reached once more behind her back, and pulled out a large sword that she had taken from one of the suits of armour at Hogwarts._

_Magorian roared, as did many of the others, and charged at her._

_She then dropped to the ground while holding the blade, and flung the sword's hilt at the front knee of the charging Centaur. The impact made a satisfying thud and crack, as the hilt made contact with Magorian's kneecap. He then gave another loud neigh, but this one was of pain rather than anger, and his leg buckled, causing him to fall head over hooves into the dirt._

_The rest of the Centaurs were all too shocked at the display of the woman's boundless strength and skill to react fast enough, before she then threw the sword up and caught it by its hilt, and, before Magorian had the chance to lift his head, she swung it around, and beheaded him._

_Jadis gave a sigh of satisfaction, as the blood sprayed from Magorian's headless neck, and his body fell dead to the ground._

"_Next?" she asked casually._

0000000000

**Present:**

Jadis stopped at the stone statues that had once been living Centaurs. Like the ones that had once decorated her ice castle in Narnia, these statues all wore looks of savage bravery, fierce honour and wisdom.

After she had successfully slain the Centaur leader, Magorian, she had gone to slaughter more than twenty others of his herd. By the end of that battle, the herd seemed to have finally realised that she was no ordinary witch. She guessed that, like her, they knew the wizards of this world depended too much on magic alone.

They had started coming at her from all sides at once. The fight had been a glorious battle, one that would have even astounded her old tutors on Charn, yet she had managed to hold her own. She had almost been disappointed when her wizard servants had finally arrived and joined in, dispatching the remainder of them with their magic. With their defeat obvious, the rest of the Centaurs had fled into the forest, and since then Jadis and her army had hunted them wherever they found them.

Fortunately, the Centaurs' disappearance was not noticed much. Hagrid and Dumbledore were the only two who first spotted that they had gone missing, but not until a few weeks after the attack. Since the Centaurs had been secluding themselves in the forest for so long, no one had really noticed. Hagrid had just assumed they were angry with the Ministry for restricting their land, and had just been preparing to venture deep into the forest to start searching for them, when the day of her attack had begun.

Dumbledore, she suspected, had known almost immediately that something was not right, but he had been so busy preparing for a war with a man who was no longer alive that he had no time.

It hadn't taken her and her soldiers too long to hunt the beasts, as there were fewer Centaurs in this world than in Narnia. The herd she had fought in the Forbidden Forest had been one of the largest herds there was in this world, and their population had been just over a mere fifty. The rest across Britain had been fewer, including one that had been just a meagre ten. Any left alive were in hiding, but she'd find them eventually.

She was admiring one of her favourite statues, when…

"AAAAARRRGHHHHH!" The sound of a thousand screams came screeching out of the castle; her own personal alarm system.

She instantly grabbed her wand. "It seems as though I have guests tonight."

**To Be Continued…**


	8. Chapter 8

**Message From Above: Part 1**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Jadis' Castle; Present:**

Harry made his way to the third floor, and was heading towards the hidden staircase that led to the room that had once been Dumbledore's office. So far, he had been fortunate, as his father's cloak had kept him thoroughly concealed, but those damn pictures just wouldn't stop staring at him!

Even though they couldn't see him, their eyes forever kept wandering to him, as that was their purpose. They weren't like the original living paintings of Hogwarts, which had had more life in them, more personality, whereas these simply stayed hanging where they were, unmoving except for their eyes. Apparently, they were part of Jadis' security system, which would immediately alert her if they saw an intruder.

Bellatrix had told him about them, along with everything else she knew about the castle when he had told everyone his plan to infiltrate it. Like everyone, she thought him insane, but in the end, she had complied. The only thing she had been unable to supply him with was the password to get into the office. No one except Jadis herself knew that.

'I suppose it's too much to hope that she wouldn't have bothered changing it,' he thought. Professor Flitwick had told him what Dumbledore's password had been before the fall of Hogwarts, for all the good that it would do, as like everyone he didn't think she would be stupid enough to not change it. The password had been Toffee Éclairs.

Harry soon reached the huge stone gargoyle that protected the circular staircase. He had been here a few times during his school days. In truth, part of him didn't want to go up there, but not because he was scared of meeting Jadis, although he would be lying if he said that didn't unnerve him somewhat. No, the truth was that he was scared of what state he would find the former headmaster's office in when he arrived up there.

After everything he had seen of the castle so far, the beautiful and wondrous place that had once been Hogwarts had now been transformed into a perverted worship of dark magic and horrific deaths, all in the name of Jadis, the castle's new ruler. He didn't want to see what she had done to Dumbledore's room, too.

But, as he knew, he had no choice. He had to get up there, as it was the only way. He needed to find it!

'It,' he thought, allowing his mind to drift ever so slightly. He wondered if it was even worth all this. For all he knew, he could be leading everyone to their deaths, thereby doing Jadis' dirty work for her and ridding the world once and for all of the resistance to her rule.

'That's a lie and you know it,' he mentally shouted at himself. 'The resistance is all but dead now. There's hardly anyone still around, and those that are, are too afraid to fight. Tonight is our last and only hope.'

Harry moaned and bit his lower lip, as he remembered the night that had started him off on all this. The night when his hope had been at its lowest…

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_**One Week Ago; Lower London:**_

_Harry waited with Ron, as they stood outside a small grocery store, seemingly talking idly with each other._

"_So this is what we've come down to, has it," said Ron moodily._

"_Don't, Ron!" said Harry, a little more forcefully than he had intended. He wasn't happy about this either, but they did what they had to do. Granted, though, he never thought that one day he would be robbing a Muggle grocery shop._

_The shop had been closed for an hour now, but the owner had still been inside cleaning up, and they had wanted to give him time to vacate the premises. Finally, they spotted him leaving through the side-door, and walking away._

"_Okay, let's go."_

"_Harry, I…" Ron started._

"_Ron! We've been over this already. We got no choice. None of us has had a decent meal in weeks." That was all true, as Jadis' forces had made it impossible for any of them to stay in one place too long, and they were now forced to forage or steal food from Muggles, as the places in the magical community were too well noticed._

_Ron still looked hesitant, but finally he nodded and followed him. A few moments later, he watched as his friend opened the locked side door, the owner had used._

"_Alohomora," Harry whispered, and the sound of bolts unlocking soon followed, and he gently pushed the door open. The moment he did, there was the beeping sound of the security alarm, indicating they had a few moments to enter the correct password before the alarm started to go off._

"_Alohomora," repeated Harry, and thankfully the beeping stopped. It had been a surprise to learn, a few months ago when a hungry resistance member had first resorted to stealing food, that the unlocking charm also worked on Muggle security alarms, too._

_After that, the two of them quickly went to work, as they raced to the back of the store where the shop-fridge was located, where they stored the unsold groceries for the next day until they were past their due-date. Thankfully, they didn't need the unlocking charm for that._

_Harry noticed there were CCTV cameras up above, but he and Ron had both taken Polyjuice Potion before coming out, taking on the forms of boys who had died three months ago, so no one would recognise them._

_They gathered as much food as they could in their bags, and then turned quickly to go. Ron took one last guilty look at the store, before following his friend back out into the night._

_Harry never looked back._

_0000000000_

_Members of the resistance all tore at them, as Harry and Ron opened their bags, handing out meats, vegetables and fruit to everyone. They grabbed the food, digging in faster than their teeth could keep up._

'_Resistance,' Harry thought bemusedly. This was clearly no resistance, but a group of frightened civilians, all running for their lives. There were only a few of them who were real fighters, but they were definitely nowhere near enough to wage war on Jadis. She and her army had taken out so many of their good soldiers that there was barely anyone left._

_Harry looked down, as he passed a loaf of bread to a little girl whose parents had died running from Jadis, who had accused them of aiding Harry Potter's army. She had turned them both into stone._

_The girl chewed down the bread as fast as she could, but Harry made no attempt to stop her or tell her to go easy. No one cared, least of all she._

_Harry looked around at all the dark faces around him, the people who bore expressions of hopelessness and despair. He had started out trying to sound as hopeful as he could to these people, trying desperately to make them believe that all would work out in the end, but… It was like being a recruitment coach at the jobcentre, trying to make the unemployed confidant about getting a job, even though there were no jobs to be had._

_In two years, nothing had changed. Jadis was still in complete control, her power greater than ever, and they, the resistance, had yet to even make a small dent in her army, or have even one small meagre victory over her. Everywhere they went, no matter what they did, Jadis seemed forever one step ahead of them. So Harry no longer gave any words of encouragement, hope or confidence. How could he when he had none himself?_

_After giving the last of the food away, he took the little he had saved for himself and moved to a place by the nearest fire, settling down to eat. He had just taken a small bite when…_

"_Harry?" asked Hermione, who had arrived to sit beside him. When Harry had stopped talking to the people, she had been the one to admonish him, saying he shouldn't give up so easily, and that everyone looked up to him, so he shouldn't let them all down. Harry, however, had said nothing to her that night, and just walked away, keeping silent. After a while, she had quit trying to reason with him, but always stayed near._

"_Harry?" she asked again, noticing that he wasn't eating and the sharp look upon his face._

_It was quiet. Too quiet!_

_Harry got up, pricking his ears up to see if he could hear anything, but there was no sound to be heard. No birds, no insects or anything. Just utter silence. And then, finally, he heard something…_

_[STOMP!]_

"_GIANTS!" he yelled out. The moment he did, all around him the people dropped everything and started screaming in terror. The tall trees surrounding their camp started to fall down, and the ugly grinning faces of seven huge giants soon appeared._

'_How the hell did we not spot them?!" Harry thought frantically, though deep down he suspected he knew. Jadis' enchantments had already done remarkable things, so concealing a giant from sight would not be beyond her. The spell must have worn off after he announced their presence, or they had simply dropped it when he called out._

_All around him, the giants were leaning over and reaching out with their fat giant hands, scooping up people, and dropping them into giant bags that they carried with them, the people screaming as they did. The giants, however, just continued grinning, and some even laughing as, to them, this was just a game._

_Feeling the rage swelling up in him at the sight of these miserable oversized imbeciles, as they picked up people whose only crime had been to help them, Harry snarled and grabbed his wand._

"_Har…!" Hermione started to say, but Harry had finished before she got to finish saying his name._

_It had been too much. Dumbledore's defeat, the years on the run, the endless defeats, Jadis' takeover of Britain and then the world, Remus, watching everyone suffer, and now this! Harry couldn't hold it in any longer, and lashed out._

"_Avada Kedavra!" he screamed, and the giant nearest him fell down in a heap, dead. Harry didn't need to look behind him to know that Hermione was staring in horror at him. He couldn't blame her for that. After all, he had just used the Killing Curse, an unforgivable spell used only by the darkest of witches and wizards, including Voldemort himself who had used it on Harry's own parents._

_And yet, Harry felt no remorse. The rage in him was still boiling, and he re-aimed his wand at the next giant. "Avada Kedavra!"_

_The second giant also fell down lifeless, but Harry still would not stop, as he once again aimed his wand and called out the dark spell. He couldn't help it. The years of misery and suppression had done its worst on him. "Avada…!"_

_He never got to finish the spell that time, as suddenly a huge foot came slamming down into him, kicking him far across the field and into the nearest tree._

"_Harry!" Hermione screamed, but he could not see her. All he could see were spots in front of his eyes. That and the pain that consumed on his left side, as he tried desperately to pull himself up made it difficult to focus._

_Sounds around him seemed muted, his ears were filled with white noise, and his vision blurred. People were rushing about, screaming, and giant feet passed by him, chasing after them._

_Despite the seriousness of the matter, Harry couldn't help saying, "So Jadis has got the giants on her side now, too. Huh, well there's a surprise I don't think."_

_He almost smiled then, but before he could even quirk his lips, another giant foot came out of nowhere, kicking him high into the air and across the field, and the moment he landed, he heard a distinct crack from somewhere in his ribcage._

"_Ughhh!" he could only groan, as the pain increased tenfold. Around him, together with the screams, he could also make out loud laughter that could only be coming from the giants. He barely managed to turn his eyes up, watching as one came towards him. The earth shuddering stomping told him that another giant was coming up behind him. The rest of the giants were all busy chasing after the remaining humans, laughing as they caught them and placed them in their bags._

'_Great, now I'm being used as a football.'_

_He gritted his teeth, as the stomping behind him came closer; preparing himself for what he knew was coming. Sure enough, something big and hard smashed into him, and he felt himself soar up high, the giant's laughter behind him._

_He went up really high this time. So high that he feared that when he touched down, he would not be getting up again, unless it was through another kick, which he suspected the giants had planned._

_His wand was lost, after dropping it during the first kick, so Harry had only one possible means of escape. For the past several months, Harry had been learning Apparition. It was the best way to travel, especially when one needed to get away in a hurry. He could use it to Apparate himself somewhere behind the trees, to give him some time to recuperate and help the others._

_Unfortunately, though, his studies were far from over, and he had been having trouble mastering the technique. Considering the current state of his body, with Merlin knows how many broken bones, Apparition would not be an ideal thing to try, as it was a bit of a strain on the body, and if he messed up then he could end up in even worse shape than before. Still, he had no choice, as the ground was coming up to him faster. It wouldn't be long before he would taste dirt._

_As the earth rushed towards him, Harry closed his eyes and tried to envision a spot behind some of the trees to Apparate to._

'_Give me strength,' he thought, but his mind wandered. The injuries he had sustained so far had left his mind in a haze. The pain was so great that he found it near impossible to concentrate on anything._

_His fists clenched, as he came a few feet from touching the ground, and then…[POP] he Apparated._

_0000000000_

_**Godric's Hollow:**_

_Harry screamed._

_He couldn't help it. The pain, which before then had already been terrible, was now beyond immense. His bones felt as if they were made of glass, shattered and being pushed out from under his skin. There was a very good chance that he may have been splinched, but at that moment he couldn't notice anything, as his screams continued to roar from his mouth. It was almost ten minutes before he finally stopped, though the pain never eased. His throat had just grown too raw for him to continue._

_As his eyes wandered around to determine his location, he finally noticed that he was in a graveyard. At first, he was terrified that maybe, through his hazy mind, he had Apparated himself to the cemetery where he had witnessed Voldemort's resurrection, but after a few moments, he was relieved to realise that this was not that place._

_As he looked closer, he realised he was in a church cemetery, covered in snow. The windows of the church itself were all dark, indicating there was not a soul about. Jadis had issued a strict curfew over the country, and many were too terrified to disobey the powerful witch queen._

_His body shuddering in untold agony, he couldn't help but wonder where he was, as he didn't recognise this place. This wasn't any churchyard he had ever been to before, not even when he had been living with the Dursleys._

'_Aunt Petunia,' he mindlessly thought, thinking of his aunt for the first time in two years. She, Uncle Vernon and his cousin Dudley had all run off when Jadis had begun sending her soldiers to start arresting various muggles, to use as slaves for certain privileged wizards. That was the last that anyone had ever seen of them since._

_Suddenly, Harry remembered. He had seen this place before, but only in a vision that Sirius had once shown him over a year ago. It was the place where his parents were buried._

_Harry had asked Sirius about his parent's resting place, and Sirius had shown him through the use of an illusion spell, but because of Jadis, they had been unable to go visit…until now._

'_Typical,' he thought humourlessly. 'The only time I get to come here is when I'm at death's door myself.'_

_Biting his lower lip until he tasted blood, he forced himself up and took a look. Most of the gravestones were old and dark grey, with layers of snow upon them, but there was one large stone that stood out from all the rest. It was a huge tombstone, made of white marble that shone out from the darkness, and Harry could just make out the names of James and Lily Potter engraved on it._

_He continued to force himself onward, as he leaned forward, pulling himself on his hands and knees, inching slowly towards the stone. He noticed that as well as his parent's names and their birth and death dates, it also had a small engraving at the bottom, which read, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."_

_Harry almost felt like laughing. If death really was an enemy, then he was one that was winning. In fact, many often wondered if perhaps death was preferable to living in a world controlled by Jadis, himself included._

_As he crawled to his parent's graves, his breath came out in shallow gasps, as each movement was agonising for him. Eventually, though, he made it there, as he came up to the stone, his long fingers reaching to touch the engraved letters of his parent's names._

"_I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. You gave your lives protecting me, only for me to end up dying anyway. Everyone thought I was destined to get rid of Voldemort, but in the end someone else did it, and she's a thousand times worse than he ever was. And I can't do anything to stop her!"_

_He coughed into his hand, and then looked at the blood that now covered it. Apparently, one of his lungs was also punctured._

"_At least now we'll be together again," he said, as a wave of dizziness went over him, and he lay down his head on the grave. "I'm so tired."_

_Harry was tired; tired of the never-ending fighting, the constant defeat, Jadis' malevolent magic, being forced to put on a brave face for everyone, and the sheer hopelessness of it all. Right now, all he wanted was to sleep._

_As he succumbed to his wounds, Harry closed his eyes, taking in the bliss of oblivion. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'm sorry you died for nothing. I'm sorry I couldn't stop any of this. I'm sorry…I'm just so sorry for everyone."_

_He would have been happy to just pass out then, as it was all he wanted to do, but his last words gave him pause for thought. "Ron, Hermione, Sirius…" If he were to die now, they'd be all alone…alone to fight Jadis._

"_NO!" he shouted, despite the agony it caused. He couldn't just leave them to face that demon witch alone._

_He managed to open his eyes, and attempted to force himself back up, but that was as far as he could get. His body was just too broken. "Please…" he prayed to whoever was listening. "Please, if there's anyone out there listening. If I must die, so be it, but… I beg you, save my friends, save this world, save…everyone, from Jadis' evil._

_He had never been one for religion, and as far as he knew there weren't that many wizards and witches who were into it either, but growing up with the Dursleys he had been to church on Sundays, and now…he was just so desperate, and there wasn't anything else left to try._

"_Our Father," Harry's voice, which had already been whispering, now sunk to a tone so low that he wondered if he was actually just thinking it without even realising, "who art in Heaven. Hallowed be thy name. They kingdom come, thy will be done…"_

_As he recited the Lord's Prayer, begging for any kind of miracle, Harry coughed up another bubble of blood, as his body took one final shudder, and then…darkness._

_0000000000_

_He felt light. That was the only word he could use to describe it. He felt lighter than air, and yet he was lying face down on a smooth surface._

_Opening his eyes, he found himself in a bright mist that was unlike any he had seen before. There were no surroundings hidden by cloudy vapour, as there didn't appear to be any. In fact, it seemed like the vapour was actually starting to form into surroundings._

_By the time he realised this, the vapour had indeed taken form, and before he knew it, he found that he was standing in what looked King's Cross Station, only larger, cleaner, and with no other people besides him. Or so he thought._

_As he looked down on himself, he noted how clean he and his clothes looked. His glasses were gone, but he didn't seem to need them anymore, as his sight appeared perfect. His wounds were all healed, and he couldn't even see any of the old scars he had obtained over the years. He briefly wondered for a moment if his old lightning scar on his forehead was still there, when…_

_A noise reached his ears, a whimpering and a soft thumping as of something very weak flailing and struggling. It sounded pitiful and made him feel uncomfortable, like he was listening in on something shameful. He only looked around for a second when he soon spotted the source of the disturbance._

_Lying beneath a seat was a hideous looking creature. It looked at first like a small, naked child, but with flayed skin, shuddering on the ground, as it struggled for breath. When Harry first saw it, he almost wanted to throw up._

"_There is nothing you can do for him," a voice suddenly spoke up, making Harry spin round in surprise. He stared in stunned silence, as Albus Dumbledore stood before him._

"_Professor…" he started to say, but paused. He didn't know how, but there was something eerily different about Dumbledore. He was standing before him in sweeping robes of midnight blue, his body undamaged, his hair and beard long and silver, crooked nose, and yet…he didn't seem quite the way that Harry remembered. He appeared more masterful, stronger yet gentle, with a powerful presence._

"_Yes and no," said Dumbledore, if that was who he really was._

"_Huh?"_

"_You see me as your friend and mentor, Albus Dumbledore, yet you sense something is not quite right with me. That is understandable. You see, I am and I am not he, but am part of him, the part that resides within all."_

_Harry felt a shiver of fear run through him, and felt that he ought to be running, but there was something about this man that compelled him to go forth to him. He was still afraid, but at the same time he wanted to go closer to him._

"_Who are you?" he asked._

"_I have many names and identities, across countless worlds in infinite universes, including this one. Yet none of them will do for me in your world, so I chose to appear to you in the form of one you trusted and loved."_

_Harry looked back at the repulsive creature that was still whimpering beneath the seat. "Why is that…that…thing here?"_

"_You do not know who it is…or to be more precise, who it was in life?"_

_Harry looked back at him, and then at the creature once again. Suddenly, he knew, as though something had just clicked in his head. "Voldemort."_

"_That is the name that he called himself once, yes."_

"_Wha…what happened to him?"_

"_What he himself caused. The lonely and lost child known as Tom Riddle carved up pieces of his own soul in an attempt to make himself immortal, by committing numerous acts of murder and carnage with no remorse. This is the result."_

_Harry stared at the hideous thing. There was a time that he would have relished this sight, knowing that the world's most hated and feared wizard (before Jadis) and the murderer of his parents was now suffering a fate beyond torture. Yet looking at him now, Harry could not help but feel an ounce of pity for the pitiful being._

"_Nothing can be done for him now," the being posing as Dumbledore repeated quietly. "The damage a person's sins do to their souls can be undone if one feels genuine remorse, but the reconciliation can only be done obviously while the person is still alive. After their souls depart for worlds beyond, whatever condition they are in is then forever set, with no hope of recovery. I'm afraid any chance of redemption for this poor wicked soul has long since passed."_

_Harry still felt pity for it, but at the same time he wanted to get as far away from it as he could. "Why are we here?" he finally asked._

"_So that we may talk."_

"_About what?"_

"_Correcting a mistake that fate made and undoing all the damage that Jadis has done in your world."_

**To Be Continued…**


	9. Chapter 9

**Message From Above: Part 2**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Jadis' Castle; Present:**

Harry stood before the large grey gargoyle, taking a deep breath as he looked at it. 'Well, it's do or die time.'

Taking another deep breath, he said, "Toffee Éclairs," and waited. At first, nothing happened, as the gargoyle made no movement. He started to wonder whether Jadis had bothered to leave this one part of Hogwarts alone, as this was what the gargoyle was supposed to do. It would wait for the correct password to be spoken, and wouldn't move until it did.

No more than two seconds after he thought that, the gargoyle's eyes lit up like two red traffic lights, and its huge mouth opened to reveal long, sharp fangs.

'Well, so much for that idea,' he thought, keeping his cloak around him and stepping back.

The gargoyle came alive and jumped down from its perch, something it had never been able to do before, not even during Dumbledore's days. Obviously, Jadis had upgraded the former headmaster's office with an even better security system. It moved around on all fours, its devilish eyes darting around, looking for the source of the intrusion.

'Suppose it'll be too much to hope for that it won't sense me,' thought Harry, holding his breath. He took another small step backwards, making no noise whatsoever, but the moment he did, the beast looked in his direction and leaped.

"Sod it!" he swore, and then pulled his cloak off and threw it at the gargoyle, as it pounced on him. The cloak fell all over it, and got tangled up in its legs, pulling it down momentarily, but Harry knew that wouldn't hold it for long. And to make matters worse, the instant he had pulled his cloak off, all the new living paintings around the castle had begun screaming. Their screeching echoed throughout the entire fortress, and probably all the way outside as well. Obviously, this was Jadis' idea of a burglar alarm.

While this was going on, and the gargoyle still lay on the floor wrapped up in the cloak, Harry made use of the distraction and ran to the hidden staircase that was now revealed, leaping up at two steps a pace.

As he ran, he heard the unmistakable sound of ripping fabric, and knew that his beloved cloak of invisibility, the one heirloom left by his father, had served him for the last time. But he had no time to mourn this, as he continued running up the stairs until he reached the door to the headmaster's office. He barely had a second to spare, as something big, heavy and stone was already running up the steps after him.

Taking out his wand, in case the door was locked; Harry grabbed the doorknob and pulled. To his immense relief, the door was unlocked (he guessed that since the entrance was guarded by a massive and ferocious gargoyle, then locking it would seem pretty pointless), as he opened it and ran in, slamming the door shut.

"Colloportus!" he cried out, turning around and casting the Locking Spell to seal the door behind him. There was a loud click, indicating the door was now bolted shut, followed by a loud bang, as the gargoyle obviously knocked into it.

Miraculously, the door did not break or even splinter, as Harry would have expected after a head-on collision with something like a stone gargoyle, but remained standing. And even more strangely, the gargoyle didn't seem to be making any attempts to get inside.

'Could Jadis be back already?' thought Harry worriedly, but then thought no, as she would have made herself known by now.

It was entirely possible that the reason the gargoyle was no longer attacking was because the spell that had given it life was designed to do so while it was guarding the office from being broken into. Since Harry had now gotten past it, and was inside the office, the gargoyle's spell was now broken. But Harry had no time to ponder this.

When he turned around, he was a little relieved to see that the office was more or less unchanged. There were a few things different, such as the portraits of all the former headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts now gone, no doubt destroyed along with the rest of the school's pictures. There were also a number of talismans, potion bottles, amulets and various other trinkets that had most certainly not been there during Dumbledore's time.

"Jadis has been busy," he murmured, but hurried to look around the room. He passed by countless shelves that held numerous items, some of which he had seen at the Ministry of Magic before its destruction.

The Ministry had since then been rebuilt, but it was no more than a farce. The whole place was just one big army base the sole purpose of which was to carry out and enforce Jadis' will, run by the new Minister of Magic, Dolores Jane Umbridge. Harry had never met her, only seen her in posters and newspapers, but from what Sirius had told him, although she had never been directly involved with Voldemort, she had been foul enough to be one of his Death Eaters. She was also known for siding with whoever had the most power, so it was no surprise she had joined Jadis.

Not that she had any real power, though, as Jadis was in control of everything, something Harry was certain she reminded everyone of on a regular basis. Umbridge merely carried out Jadis' will, the same as everyone else. But what she had done in her name, Harry could not fathom how Umbridge could sleep at night.

He quickly skimmed through all of the items in sight, moving bottles aside on the shelves, taking out books to look for hidden compartments, and opening chests and boxes. But so far, he found nothing.

"Where is it?!" he said desperately. He had to find it! Everything depended on that one item, as he had been promised.

0000000000

_**One Week Ago; Limbo:**_

_Despite what the man, who was and wasn't Dumbledore, had said, Harry felt his mind wandering, as he stared at his surroundings._

"_Where am I?" he asked. "Am I…am I dead?"_

"_Not quite," the being said patiently, "but you are in a state of what some humans call limbo; a state that exists between life and death."_

"_Why does it look like King's Cross Station?"_

"_Limbo's appearance is different for each person who comes here. To you, it appears as that of a train station because it is from here you may go on, should you choose to do so."_

"_Go on where?"_

_Dumbledore, or whoever he was, smiled gently. "To my country."_

_Harry opened his mouth, and then closed it. God help him, he was tempted to indeed go on. He was just so tired of all the fighting and carnage. "What will happen to my friends?" he then asked._

"_What happens to us all eventually, albeit much sooner."_

_Harry chewed his lower lip. "They'll die."_

"_As we all do in the end, son of Adam."_

"_But you said I can choose what happens to me?"_

_Dumbledore nodded. "What happens now is your own decision."_

"_Why?" Harry suddenly looked up at him, honestly curious. "Why is it my decision?"_

"_Because you called for help in saving your friends, and I answered."_

_Harry stared at him, desperation and hope in his eyes. "Can you…can you kill Jadis?"_

_Dumbledore lost his smile then, and sighed sadly. "Not in the way you are thinking, my son."_

"_Then can you at least give me something to stop her with?! A spell perhaps. Something to fight her off."_

"_Alas, no. Jadis comes from a world where magic was ancient long before magic on your world first drew breath. Its might has no equal on your world. And no, I cannot give you anything that you can take back with you, save knowledge, which is what I have to offer."_

_Harry looked at him dumbfounded, but finally nodded. "You…you said she comes from another world?" At the man's nod, Harry gave a long breath. "Then…what Jadis told the public…the rumours…they're all true. She's some kind of alien?"_

_Dumbledore smiled again. "That is one word to describe her, yes."_

"_But…how?"_

"_That is a long story, and one that I will now share with you. For you will need to know it in order to learn how to defeat her." He raised his arm, and the mist started to gather all around them again._

_As Harry watched, he saw the mist take the shape of what looked like a large window, and when he looked through it, he saw multiple images take form within. Before long, he saw a gigantic city with buildings of pyramids, palaces, towers, temples and bridges that stretched on for as far as his eyes could see. And as he looked closer, he saw numerous people walking about._

_At first, he thought the people to be human, but peering at them closer he soon dismissed that idea. The people were very tall, some as big as Jadis and others even bigger, and all with uncommon beauty, even the very old and weary looking._

"_Where is this?" he asked._

"_What you see before you is the now dead world of Charn, as it was thousands of years ago." said the voice of Dumbledore in another person's tone. "The day you see here is the day when the beginning of Charn's end came to be."_

_There was suddenly a loud clanging noise, like the chime of huge bells, and the people began rushing about in a frenzy of panic, as they grabbed what possessions they had and fled._

"_What's going on?"_

"_The last two daughters of the royal family of Charn have declared war upon each other, and the first battle is about to begin."_

_The misty forms started to shift, and Harry then saw the silhouettes of two women standing before them. He recognised the first one instantly…_

"_Jadis!" he half-snarled beneath his breath, yet he was also puzzled. The woman he was seeing was definitely Jadis, but she appeared somewhat different. Her hair, which was usually ash blonde, was dark black, and her normally pale white skin had a golden hue, the colour of one who had spent many days out in the sun. The second woman was almost a younger version of Jadis, except her body had even more muscle, and she held an even larger sword._

"_The Princess Jana," Dumbledore explained. "The sister of Jadis, and second in line to the throne of Charn. While Jadis was well skilled in magic, her sister was the warrior in their family. Their world's finest fighter and military expert." He then gave a sad sigh. "It's sad in a way. If they had worked together, so much bloodshed could have been avoided."_

"_What happened?"_

_Dumbledore said nothing, and just pointed at the picture, as a sudden bright light blazed across their sights._

"_What was that?!" asked Harry._

"_The end," replied Dumbledore in a sad tone. "Jadis and her sister fought for over a year, making the streets of their city run red with their people's blood. In the end, Jadis used her power to end the war once and for all, along with everything else, by using the most powerful and the darkest of all Charn's secrets. The Deplorable Word."_

"_The what?"_

"_The spell of death and destruction. It had long been guarded and protected by the rulers of Charn, who had sworn never to use it, or even seek knowledge of it. But Jadis, as you may have guessed, was more power hungry than her ancestors, and sought to use the spell as a weapon. On the eve of her defeat at her sister's hand, instead of surrendering Jadis used the Deplorable Word to end all life on her home-world, not just her sister and their people, but every beast, tree, plant, mountain and ocean. None were spared, and Charn became a barren wasteland, devoid of all life forever."_

_Harry felt like being sick. "She…she destroyed her own world, her own people?!"_

_Dumbledore made no move, and just looked ahead at the once again changing picture. "If you ask Jadis about this, she would say the same to you as she once said to someone who asked her that question…that she was the Queen. They were all her people. What else were they there for but to do her will." He turned his head to look at him. "Jadis, like her ancestors before her, had all positioned themselves above their people, ruling them from on high. But when you elevate yourself like that, you forget that people are people, and believe that the rules of common people are beneath you. Before long, like Jadis, you come to look down on others, and think of them as no more than mere property, to discard or destroy when it suits you."_

"_But…how could she?! To destroy a whole race, especially her own."_

"_As I said, Jadis believes herself above the law and rules that help define who we are, and prevent us from going down the road into darkness. When you believe that, your evil can be endless."_

"_But how did she survive then, if she destroyed her world?"_

"_The spell was designed to destroy all life on her world, save for the one who speaks it. Thus Jadis was spared; alone but alive. After which, she placed herself in an enchanted sleep, on the off chance that visitors from another world would come and save her, which they did."_

_The mist then took on the form of two human children, one boy and one girl._

"_Who are they?" Harry asked curiously._

"_Children from a world such as yours, set in a different time and reality, one with barely any magic. The magic that did exist there allowed them to cross over from their world to Charn. From there they inadvertently awakened the sleeping queen, who then stowed away with them to their world, and then to another."_

_Harry frowned. He remembered reading something from one of Jadis' many debut speeches to every country in the world, where she introduced herself as the queen of the now dead world of Charn, and queen of the world of beasts called…but he couldn't remember what._

"_Narnia," Dumbledore suddenly said._

"_Huh?"_

"_The land to which Jadis went after travelling to the other Earth was called Narnia. A paradise newly brought to life that was, alas, polluted with her evil mere hours after its birth."_

_The way this man knew Harry's thoughts made him nervous, but then again the real Dumbledore had done more or less the same thing in life, too._

"_Jadis came to Narnia at the time of its creation, and threatened it with her evil. To safeguard the Narnians and protect their innocence from Jadis' darkness, the children who had brought her there were sent to a blessed Garden where grew a sacred tree. They were to retrieve one of its fruit, which would keep Jadis out of Narnia. Jadis found out and sought to stop them. But when she got there, the temptation of the fruit was too much for her, and she consumed it."_

_The mist showed Jadis stealing what looked like a Silver Apple from a huge tree, and as Harry watched her eat it, he saw her body begin to change. Her once golden skin turned as white as paper, and her ebony black hair turned ash-blonde. Even her eyes seemed to grow paler._

"_What happened?"_

"_The Silver Fruit you see is a wondrous miracle in itself. Whomsoever eats it is granted their hearts' greatest desire, but only if they obtain the fruit in the correct manner. For the fruit cannot be taken selfishly; only by taking them for another or being given them will their rewards be without a price."_

"_Price?"_

"_Yes. The children got the fruit for me, as they grow in my garden, and as a reward I offered one of them a second fruit to take back with them to save a loved one of theirs who was ill and dying. Jadis, however, broke into my garden and stole the fruit for herself. From the moment the fruit touched her lips, she cursed herself for all eternity."_

"_How?" Harry asked eagerly._

_Dumbledore sighed. "When she ate the fruit, it did indeed grant her her heart's desire, by making her forever young and strong, as a goddess. But, at the same time, it also drained her of all her happiness, never allowing her a moment of joy or contentment, only grief. And because she was now immortal, that meant that her grief would never end."_

_Harry frowned again. "Wait a minute. I've seen Jadis plenty of times in battle and on public speeches. She doesn't seem like the kind of person who's in total grief."_

_Dumbledore nodded. "Alas, yes. The blame for that lies partly in your world, Harry Potter. When she came to your world and studied its magic, she learned the art of embodying certain emotions, including joy and happiness. Because of my curse, Jadis was the literal embodiment of grief, but she was able to create for herself a stone that was the embodiment of joy, something that was impossible in Narnia. By bringing these two opposite forces together within herself, the two were able to cancel each other out, thus rendering my curse inoperable." He once more took on a look of sorrow. "This has allowed Jadis to become even more aggressive and more dangerous than she was before coming to Narnia."_

"_But how did this keep her from conquering Narnia? What, was she too depressed for years to care about conquering or something?"_

_Dumbledore smiled. "Not quite. Another side effect of the holy fruit is that anyone who steals and eats it is also forever horrified by its mere sight afterwards. Therefore by taking it, Jadis had unintentionally sealed herself out of Narnia. When the children brought me the fruit, it was planted in Narnia's borders and grew into a fine Silver Tree. Its presence kept Jadis out of Narnia. Alas, though, like all things it did not last forever."_

"_What happened?"_

"_Nothing is eternal, son of Adam. The tree was no exception. It fell down in a great storm nearly 900 years after its planting, and with its destruction, Jadis was able to once more enter Narnia and make it her own kingdom. After which, she cursed the land with a never-ending winter that lasted for a hundred years, to punish the Narnians and to ensure that no more Silver Trees would grow."_

_The mists shifted, and Harry watched as he saw Jadis standing over the body of a man, with a crown in her one hand and a wand in the other. Around her there were dozens of fearsome and terrifying creatures, some he recognised, some he could never have imagined, and some that, as far as he knew, were not real, not even in the wizarding world, like the Minotaurs that he had read about in Greek myths._

_Although a lot of mythical creatures he had heard about growing up turned out to actually exist in the wizarding community, the Minotaurs were not one of them. They were just a story, nothing more. However, it was apparently not so in this Narnia world._

"_How'd Jadis get to my world, then?" he asked._

"_Upon her victory, she was told that someday four humans would come to Narnia, and with their arrival would come the beginning of the end of her reign."_

"_And did it?"_

"_Indeed. After a century of snow and misery, four humans arrived in Narnia, upon which the Narnians gathered together and fought against Jadis and her army. The battle was fierce, but in the end they were victorious."_

"_But if Jadis was defeated then how did she get to my world?" he asked again._

_Dumbledore looked at him, sorrow on his face. "A loophole."_

"_Huh?"_

"_The prophecy went as thus: When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone, sits at Cair Paravel in throne, the evil time will be over and done."_

"_So?"_

"_The prophecy stated that Jadis' reign would indeed be over, but it didn't say she would die. It only said her time would be over and done. That was an oversight that no one could have anticipated, and Jadis used it to her advantage."_

"_How'd you mean?"_

_Dumbledore sighed. "Jadis always intended to one day extend her empire beyond Narnia, as she lived to conquer and rule other beings. The problem with that, though, was that she couldn't because…"_

"_The prophecy," Harry deduced. "It said that humans would be her downfall, and I'm guessing that there were at least some humans in that world, if not in her country, which means that she couldn't leave the country. Not without the chance of bringing some humans into Narnia, thus risking the prophecy coming true."_

"_Indeed. Hence the reason why Jadis never ventured anywhere beyond Narnia's borders. However, there was one other option open to her. Because she was from another world herself, and had travelled between worlds not once but twice, she knew of the existence of them. Since she couldn't conquer anywhere else on that world, she decided she would try conquering other worlds instead."_

"_So she came to my world, intending to take it over?"_

"_No, not at first. Her arrival in your world was by pure chance. She had created for herself a powerful amulet that could break down the barriers between worlds, but she never got to test it. She had barely finished it when the four humans of the prophecy arrived, and during the final battle when she knew her defeat was imminent, she used it as a last resort to escape. The result brought her to your world, where she has been ever since."_

_The mists shifted, and Harry saw Jadis standing in the midst of another battlefield, this time with various other creatures fighting all around her. She was standing before a young boy, as he lay on the ground looking up in fear at her, as she brandished a sword, looking as though she were about to stab him. Before she could, however, a huge lion came running at her, looking as if it were about to pounce._

_As Harry watched, he saw something that he never thought he would see…fear. An expression of absolute fear etched on Jadis' face. Since the day she had first appeared, Harry had never once seen her display anything besides bravery, arrogance, pride and cruelty. He had doubted that she even knew the meaning of the word fear._

_Jadis seemed to overcome it, though, as she clutched at something around her neck. From what he could see, it appeared to be an amulet, which he guessed had to be the one that Dumbledore had just told him about. It was made of gold, with a crystal in the centre._

_The second she grabbed it, the area around her changed, and a moment later, Harry saw one of the places he had never wanted to see again. Jadis was standing in the old cemetery where Voldemort's father and grandparents were buried, where he had resurrected himself to his full power, and where Cedric Diggory had lost his life._

"_Can she use the amulet to travel to any world then?" he quickly asked, if only to avoid looking at the place he had had nightmares about for years._

"_Fortunately, no. The amulet was delicate, and unsuitable for inter-dimensional travelling. It brought her to your world, but at the cost of its destruction. And without it, Jadis is trapped in your world until she can create another one."_

"_Can she do that?!" Harry looked at him in alarm._

"_Unfortunately, she can in time. But for now she is more concerned with getting complete control over your world and its forces. However, with her power and your world's magic combined and at her command, she will be a far greater threat now than she ever was in Narnia or even on Charn. The whole universe and its countless dimensions will be at risk."_

_The images showed Jadis throwing the amulet away from her before they then faded, and the mists dispersed, floating away quickly._

"_Is that it?" said Harry, shock in his voice, and then shouted, "What good is all this then?! All you've given me is Jadis' life story. The amulet that brought her here, and could get rid of her, is now gone. You've said that no magic on my world can defeat her. So what the hell am I supposed to do then?!"_

_Dumbledore just kept looking at him with his calm and neutral stare. "You are but half right, Harry Potter. The amulet was shattered during its journey to your world, but it is not gone. It lies in the same place where it has been since its arrival, in the burial ground where the remains of your enemy's kin lies."_

"_The cemetery? But even so, what good is that? The amulet's destroyed."_

"_Not completely. The amulet has been broken, but some remnants of its magic remains within its shattered form, just enough to reveal the last place and time it was in before coming to your world."_

_Harry frowned. "So…we can send her back?"_

"_No, as I said, the amulet is incapable of doing anymore travelling between worlds…at least not on its own."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_This is where my knowledge can help you. As I told you, Jadis should never have come to your world. She should have died at the battle in Narnia, where her evil would have finally come to an end, but alas, it did not. Fate made an unintentional mistake, allowing Jadis to escape hers by finding that loophole in the prophecy. It must be corrected."_

"_How?"_

"_By combining Jadis' magic and some from your world, you can save your friends and people, and undo all the damage she has done."_

"_And how do I do that?"_

"_On your world, there is a magical talisman called a Time-Turner. With that and the amulet together, you can bring an end to Jadis' reign on your world, by seeing to it that it never even begins."_

_Harry stared at him for a moment, chewing on his lower lip. Of course he knew what a Time-Turner was, as Hermione had had one during her third year at school so that she could go to multiple classes. They had both used it to help save Sirius's life by going back in time to get him away from the Dementors. Hermione had gotten rid of it, though, as the numerous lessons had proved too much for even she._

"_A Time-Turner can only be used to take one back in time one hour for each time they turn the hourglass on it," he explained. "To go back and stop Jadis, we'd have to turn it like…a thousand times if not more. And even then, we'd have to be standing in the spot where we'd want to be, as the Turner only moves you through time, not space."_

"_Normally, yes," said Dumbledore calmly. "However, when the two are combined, the magical and physical laws change somewhat."_

"_In what way?"_

"_Jadis' amulet can travel through space, while the Time-Turner travels through time. Put them together, and they can do both."_

_Harry's eyes lit up. "So we can go back and stop her before she started turning the world to hell?!" he said excitedly. "But…wait, I thought you said the amulet was destroyed and could no longer work?"_

"_Yes, the amulet can no longer function on its own. But if you were to bond the talisman with that of the Time-Turner, their two magics would allow the wearer to make one final journey through time and space, to the moment before the amulet was first used."_

"_How?"_

"_As I said, the amulet can no longer work, as its magic was depleted almost completely during Jadis' journey to your world. However, there is a remnant of its power still residing within it. There's not enough for it to do anymore travelling, so it just sits in the amulet like a memory."_

"_You mean…like when a computer shuts down?" Harry asked, frowning as he remembered something from his pre-wizard days. "When a computer downloads something, it keeps a copy of what its system was like before the download, so that someone can restore it back to its previous settings if they want."_

_Dumbledore shrugged. "In a way. The remnant I speak of does indeed keep a memory, one of the exact time and place that the amulet resided in before it was first used. Only it does not have the energy to travel there."_

"_But the Time-Turner does!" said Harry, understanding._

"_Exactly. The moment you merge the two talismans together, and activate the Time-Turner, the spark from its magic will cause a chain reaction, igniting the leftover energy in the amulet. The result will cause the wearer of the two talismans to journey back to the amulet's original time and position, in the battle of Narnia, where Jadis first used it. From that point, you will have a short time in which to prevent Jadis from ever using the amulet, thus preventing her arrival on your world."_

"_And nothing that has happened since then will ever come to be," said Harry, breathing heavily. It sounded almost too good to be true._

"_Yes," replied Dumbledore, though as he said it there was an underlying tone of sadness in him. "But you must be aware of a few things, my son."_

"_Hmmm?" said Harry, though part of him wasn't really listening, as the thought of a world without Jadis sounded like heaven to him._

"_No, you must listen, Harry Potter!" added Dumbledore, a little forcefully. "And listen carefully because this is important."_

_Harry shook himself out of his reverie, and looked at him. Dumbledore looked back at him._

"_First of all, be aware that after you merge the talismans, you can only use them once, and you must use it in the place where Jadis first appeared on your world, so make sure you make no mistakes. And secondly, if you do this…if you go back in time and prevent Jadis' journey to your world, you, this version of you, will never come to be. You will literally cease to exist."_

_Harry gave a humourless smirk. "Frankly, sir, nothing would make me happier than that, as I could do without any of the memories I've had over the past couple of years." He paused. "Wait! If I cease to be then…will that mean that everyone else will, too?"_

_Dumbledore nodded. "Yes. The entire world as you know it will never come to be. Nothing that has come of Jadis' presence in your world will be born, neither the bad nor the good, no matter how meagre."_

_Harry frowned. "And if Jadis never comes then…will that mean that Voldemort will come back?"_

_He nodded again. "Everything will be as it was."_

"_Will I…" Harry paused. "Will I be able to defeat Voldemort?"_

_Dumbledore looked sadly at him. "I can not divulge things that might be, Harry Potter. I can only say that things will be as they should be. You will battle the Dark Lord as you always should have done."_

"_And my friends? What will become of them?"_

"_Some may live, some may die. No matter which time you choose, there will always be casualties. Such is the way of the world."_

"_Then how can I know what to do? How can I know whether the new world will be any better than the one I'm living in right now?!"_

"_You can't. You can only take a leap of faith, and trust that everything will work itself out. Remember, faith can move mountains."_

_Harry looked down, and after debating with himself for what felt like an eternity, he clenched his fists and sighed. "I… I would like to go back home now, please."_

_Dumbledore looked at him calmly, and then reached out with his right hand, touching Harry on his brow, and lowered his head to whisper something in his ear. The second he did, Harry felt a rush of air flow through him, and for one moment he swore he saw the eyes of Dumbledore, or whoever he was, shine bright gold…like a lion's._

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_He felt as though he was floating under water, with distant voices sounding high above him._

"_Can't you work any faster?"_

"_I'm doing the best I can!"_

_The voices sounded familiar to him, but Harry was too dazed to focus. In truth, part of him didn't even want to. He felt calm and at peace, and more than anything he wanted to sleep and leave the trouble of the world behind him._

"_He's starting to come out of it," the second voice said, sounding clearer. Oh, why couldn't whoever it was just let him rest?!_

"_Harry! Harry, mate, can you hear me?"_

_He recognised the first voice now, as he forced his eyes open to look at its owner, and saw Ron looking down on him in concern._

"_Hey, Ron," he murmured, his head still aching and feeling heavy._

"_Oh, Harry!" the second voice, which he now recognised as Hermione, squealed in relief, and Harry watched as her bushy head came into sight, followed by her embracing him tightly._

"_Easy, Hermione," he grumbled. "I'm awake, but I still feel as though I've been inside a demolisher."_

"_Oh, sorry," she said, as she pulled back and began waving her wand over him, speaking some healing spells. "Are you okay?"_

"_I've been better." He groaned, as he tried to sit up, but Hermione held him down, telling him to sit still while she continued working on him. "How'd you find me?"_

"_Lucky guess," replied Ron grimly. "After we saw you injured and Apparate, we went to look for you in one of the likely places, like one of the safe-houses. When we couldn't find you there, we figured you must have been in a big daze from your injuries and had gone somewhere you had just thought at the back of your mind. Sirius suggested Godric's Hollow, as it was where your parents were buried, and you had often expressed desire to go visit there."_

"_Sirius? Is he…?"_

"_He's fine, Harry. He was too badly hurt to come here himself, so me and Hermione came. After you vanished, the rest of us took off as well, and most of us got away."_

"_Most of us?"_

_Ron's lower lip wobbled for a second, but he held it in check. "Nearly half of us were captured by the giants. Dunno what happened to them after that."_

"_They were probably taken to Jadis' castle or the Ministry most likely," added Hermione, as she continued casting the healing charms to repair Harry's shattered body. "Thank God I still had some of that essence of Dittany left. It was what saved your life."_

_Dittany was a magical plant used in potion making. It was a powerful healing herb with restorative abilities. Hermione always made sure that she had some in her bag, in case of any attacks. Unfortunately, with Jadis' forces' continuous attacks on them, she had gone through more than half her stash of Dittany, and now only had a few drops left._

_Harry said nothing for a moment, and just lay there, breathing heavily, his fists clenched._

"_That'll do for now," said Hermione, as she put her wand away, and moved to help him up. "We have to get away. It's not safe here."_

"_Is there any place that's actually safe?" Ron mumbled, earning a sharp look from his friend._

"_We need to get back to the others!" Harry suddenly said, as he allowed his friends to help him up. "There's something we need to do."_

"_What?" asked Ron curiously, as moved under Harry's arm, balancing him._

"_Hermione," Harry said, looking at her. "I need you to tell me everything you know and remember about Time-Turners."_

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_After their discussion, Ron and Hermione had taken Harry to one of their few remaining safe-houses, where they had met up with the others. It had taken a while, but eventually Harry explained to them all that he had been through, and what his plan was. Needless to say, when he told them about Dumbledore, or something that had looked like him, telling him about Jadis, the Time-Turner and everything, most of them thought that he had either been hallucinating or that he was simply crazy._

_But he had been insistent, and had continued explaining to them all that he had been told by the unknown being. And while many of them had still been doubtful, including Ron and Hermione, they had followed him when he had gone to the cemetery at Little Hangleton, to find Jadis' lost amulet. They had spent nearly an hour searching through the overgrown weeds and bushes of the grave-yard (a lot of places had been left unattended since Jadis' takeover) until finally Hermione had found what they were looking for._

_The amulet looked to be nothing more than a cracked shard of glass inside a lump of crushed and blackened metal, but its description and location were just as Harry had said, and finally everyone started to believe him about his near death experience._

_After finding the amulet and bringing it back with them, Hermione had spent several hours studying it. Its structure was unknown to her, but that was to be expected. After all, it had been created on another world with another world's magical knowledge. She had declared eventually that if there was any magic left in it then she couldn't detect it. It appeared to be lifeless, but Harry remembered that the Dumbledore-apparition had said that was how the amulet would seem._

_Next had come the hard part. To do what he planned, to go back and stop Jadis from ever coming to their world, he first had to convince everybody to help him. The result was less than satisfying, as there were so many variables and inconsistencies. Some still thought he was mad, and those that didn't were forever questioning him._

_A Time-Turner only took someone back one hour per turn, and even if he was right then if they did this then they would be erasing everything, including themselves. The former Ministry's rules about time travel had been most strict and absolute, for the slightest mistake could result in unknown and dire consequences._

_And then there was the biggest problem; even if everyone agreed, there was only one Time-Turner left now. One of the first things that Jadis had done at the start of her reign was to gather up and contain all the mystical items in the magical community, especially those that could pose a threat to her. Needless to say, a talisman that could send a person through time had been high on her list._

_Because of the seriousness of time travel, the Ministry had always ensured that they would keep extensive records of every Time-Turner ever created, and the location of each one in existence._

_Jadis had used the Ministry's records to track down and gather up every Time-Turner in existence, and once she had them all, she had destroyed all but one, which she had kept for herself, adding its magic to her already growing power. She had also destroyed every file, parchment and note there was on how to create a Time-Turner, again keeping only a few for herself, which she kept stored somewhere highly classified. She had even gathered everyone who knew even the basics of the talisman's manufacture. Those whose minds she didn't completely obliterate, she added to her collection of statues._

_There was no one alive who could create a new Time-Turner for them, and the only one left in the whole world was at Jadis' castle. Right in the belly of the beast._

_Many had given their own opinion on the matter. Many were obviously frightened, and some had even fled, terrified of being destroyed, or worse, caught. Others still thought him crazy. And some were still hoping that there might yet be another way._

_In the end, surprisingly enough, the first one who had actually agreed with Harry's plan was none other than Bellatrix Lestrange. She had walked forth and stated her approval of his plan, and dared anyone to join with them. When she did that, there was not a single jaw that didn't drop._

_Harry suspected that, like he, Bellatrix knew that if they did this, if they stopped Jadis from ever coming to their world, then nothing she had done would ever come to pass. In which case, her 'beloved' Dark Lord Voldemort would never have been vanquished._

_After her, Ron and Hermione came forth. They said they had been through too much together for them to turn back on him now. Sirius, of course, as his godfather, stood by whatever decision he made. After him, most of the others had all agreed._

_The ones who didn't, Harry had looked to them and stated simply, "I know what I'm proposing is risky. I know full well that if we go to Jadis' castle, many of us will not be returning. And I also know the possible and dire consequences of using a Time-Turner to such an extreme, but… My friends, if we do nothing then…what are we to do? Jadis will soon track us down, and there are so few of us left. This is very well our last and only hope!"_

_His words had struck a chord with each of them, and all the remaining few had finally submitted by lowering their heads and eventually nodding them, signalling their support._

_Harry had nodded back at them, and the rest of the night had been spent planning and preparing battle-drills. For within the next week at the most, they would be attacking Jadis at her castle!_

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**Jadis' Castle; Present:**

Harry swarmed through the shelves, picking up and bagging some items and smashing others, so Jadis wouldn't figure out which one he was specifically after. So far, though, he could find no sign of the Time-Turner. Swearing quietly, he continued searching through the bottles of potions, books and talismans. He had to find it!

The others would have started the distraction by now, but there was no guarantee Jadis would take the bait. For all he knew, she could be on her way to her office at that moment.

After they had found Jadis' lost and forgotten amulet, Harry had brought it to Ollivander, the former proprietor of Ollivander's Wand Shop. Since Jadis' takeover, he had lost his shop, as all wands were now designed and created by a selected few of Jadis' chosen wizards.

Harry had asked him if he could merge the amulet with a Time-Turner, to which Ollivander had almost frantically shaken his head. Time-Turners were incredibly complex talismans, constructed by only the most highly trained wizards and witches. They weren't anything like a wand, and he didn't know the first thing about them. As for the amulet, he didn't even know what the hell that was; let alone how to alter it. Any half-smart wizard would be out of their mind to try such a thing.

But Harry had begged him to try, as Ollivander was the only one with even the basics of working with and constructing magical objects. Hermione was smart enough to know how to work such a thing, but to know how to actually make such a powerful thing, let alone merge two separate talismans together, was way beyond her. Maybe if she had time to study and prepare, she might be able to, but time was one of the many things they did not have. In the end, Ollivander agreed to at least try.

The plan was; once Harry found the Time-Turner, he was to hurry back to their latest hideout, where Ollivander was waiting for them, so that he could immediately start work on the merging.

Pushing over a stack of shelves, frustration building up inside him, Harry was close to panicking when suddenly, there on a small pile of jewels in a tiny wooden box, he saw the Time-Turner.

**To Be Continued… **


	10. Chapter 10

**The Final Battle**

**Part 1**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Jadis' Castle; 10 Minutes Ago:**

Bellatrix Lestrange waited impatiently. She had been hiding in a disused classroom since she had breached the castles' defences. The spell she had mastered while serving Jadis had made her invisible to the portraits and armour, but it would not shield her from all of the self-proclaimed queen's detection spells. So, much as it humiliated her to do it, she was hiding.

Her task was to create a suitable distraction at the right time. In order to know what the right time was, she carried a filthy muggle device. She had balked at using the machine, but Harry had convinced her. She had taken the small two-way radio, charmed to work inside Hogwarts.

Jadis didn't have the aversion to muggle devices that most wizards and witches did, but she knew that those who opposed her were dismissive of such things. The fact that it took elaborate spell-work to make even simple devices work in areas of concentrated magic was enough for her. She saw no need to prevent radio signals from being transmitted and received in her castle. Harry had counted on this and taken full advantage once they had verified it.

The radios had worked after a fashion, on Hogwarts' grounds, allowing brief, static riddled transmissions, so they knew they had a method of communication, good for short simple messages. That was all they needed. The radios, however, weren't all that they had brought.

Reaching the classroom where she waited, undetected, had been a challenge even for Bellatrix. The concealment spell she had devised wasn't easy to maintain for long periods, and she looked forward to the time when she could stop all the hiding and really cut loose. She smiled when the alarms went off, knowing that Potter had accomplished at least part of his goal. None of them had deluded themselves that they would get in and out undetected.

'Time to do my part.' She smiled smugly and strode out into the corridor. "Reducto!"

The spell brought down part of the wall, and two of the portraits nearby looked at her and started screaming. She set them on fire. With the happy deranged smile that had terrified the Dark Lord's followers, she began skipping down the corridor casting one destructive spell after another. The damage appeared random at first, but she chose her targets carefully. A supporting column here, a load bearing wall there, and fire added to the general mess served to hide her intent.

During Bellatrix's school years at Hogwarts, she had learned many of its secrets. Having been one of the brightest witches of her generation, she had been curious about so many things, and learning a lot of the castle's secrets had been a challenge. At the time, of course, she had never envisioned using what she learned to try to bring down the castle.

It now seemed a worthwhile goal, though. She began to sing as she killed two responding guards, never breaking stride.

"_Hogwarts Castle is falling down,_

_Falling down, falling down!_

_Hogwarts Castle is falling down!_

_I'm so happy!"_

Three more guards attacked her, but fared no better than the first. Two fell to killing curses. The last, on a whim of Bellatrix's, took a Reducto to the stomach, while she skipped on unperturbed.

As she had hoped, her actions brought Jadis running. Most people believed Bellatrix to be irretrievably insane, demented, but that didn't mean she took foolish risks. She had carefully calculated her course through the castle and selected each spot she'd targeted with a Reducto. She chose the places she started fires in with equal care, in order to slow pursuit. She was not foolish enough, even with all of her pureblood arrogance, to believe she could take Jadis one on one, so as soon as she was certain she had the queen's attention, she changed course and headed for the outside, fairly certain she could get beyond the wards and activate her portkey.

Each of them had one, and each one would be using it when their part of the mission was completed. Bellatrix's part was to draw out Jadis and lead her on a merry chase. Hopefully, Potter would be able to make good use of it and escape.

Three more Reductos were cast, as she dodged spells from Jadis and one of her stooges, which brought down the section of the castle they were in. The last one blasted a path to the outside, which she used seconds ahead of the collapse, and a bare second ahead of the curse that turned one of the former Death Eaters rushing to investigate, to stone. Bellatrix danced away, laughing mockingly as she fired a salvo of curses that would have been the end of a squad of fully trained Aurors. They barely slowed Jadis, but they did slow her.

Out in the grounds, there was less cover, and shield spells wouldn't stop Jadis' spell of petrification any more than they would stop Avada Kadavra. Instead, she dodged, moving in a mad-seeming evasive pattern that she had long ago perfected. It looked random and unpredictable, but she knew every step by heart and could easily improvise. Tossing random spells about as she moved, she worked to stay ahead of Jadis' spells, and to create suitable distractions, as she cast a blasting hex to pepper her enemy with stone shrapnel.

"Fiendfyre!" Jadis' voice spoke suddenly called out from behind her.

Before Bellatrix could make it to the edge of the wards, where her portkey would function, a huge wall of fire suddenly sprang up in front of her, and took on the form of several dragons that blocked her path, roaring as they spewed flames upon her.

Jadis had just used the Fire Curse; a spell that conjured flames, sometimes taking the form of creatures, which directly sought out specific victims. The spell was very powerful, but was also incredibly difficult to master, as once spoken the conjured flames were nearly impossible to control. Jadis, however, seemed to have no problem with them.

"A decent effort," Jadis continued speaking, and Bellatrix turned around in time to see the white queen walking towards her. Jadis batted aside a volley of hexes before she moved her wand in an all too familiar pattern. "You'll make a fine addition to my gallery, Bellatrix Lestrange."

Bellatrix had no time to aim her wand or even blink, as the light from Jadis' wand sparkled and struck her.

'And I was so close, too,' she thought, before her thoughts ended forever, and a new statue was added to Jadis' collection.

Jadis widened her focus, tuning into the wards in an effort to locate the other intruders. She had quickly realized Lestrange' antics were a distraction rather than an attack, but she'd been forced to deal with it to limit the damage regardless. The mad witch's sabotage had bought the others time. She fumed briefly over the mess the woman had made, but had to almost admire her skill. With another century or so of experience, she would have made a decent opponent.

Ah, there! She had located another disturbance in the wards, and Apparated to the spot. It took only a second to locate the source of the disturbance. Two wizards and a witch dressed in dark clothing that all but screamed 'sneak thief' were making their way towards the edge of the grounds. All of them turned as soon as they heard the crack of Apparition, and attacked.

Jadis blocked their efforts easily and killed the younger wizard, a red-headed teenager she vaguely remembered from her classes.

"NO!" screamed the witch, a brown haired teenager, as she started furiously throwing increasingly vicious spells at her. She was soon joined by another witch, which appeared from nowhere, with considerably greater skill and just as much desire to kill her it seemed.

The other wizard had vanished, but there was no sound of Apparition and they were still inside the wards, so he couldn't have used a Portkey.

She was actually beginning to enjoy the exercise. Although the stone in her ring gave her a full range of emotions, and she was able to find satisfaction and even joy in other pursuits, it was combat that made her heart quicken and sing like nothing else. The trade of blows with a worthy opponent, and their eventual defeat was one of her favourite things. Although it was a bit petty, she even enjoyed watching the faces of her current opponents as she batted away some of their spells with her bare hand. It was a parlour trick, but it impressed anyone who didn't know the rather simple secret.

The two witches were just enough to provide a small challenge, but she couldn't waste too much time with them. She knew she should find the rest of the intruders and learn the reason behind the invasion, but she hadn't had a good fight in weeks.

Her internal debate ended abruptly when the wizard she thought had fled suddenly reappeared. The Animagus, Sirius Black, was suddenly at her side, clamping powerful canine jaws on her wand hand. He shook her savagely, and Jadis screamed in shock and pain. They became screams of rage, though, when the filthy beast tore her wand and two of her fingers from her hand before dashing away.

Taking a second to staunch the blood flow with a muttered spell, she started after the beast. The Animagus reverted to human form in mid run, and caught the wand in his hand. "Tonks!" He drew back his hand to throw the wand while Jadis used her uninjured one to draw a knife from a hidden sheath. A flick of her wrist sent it unerringly into the middle of his back, but she was not in time to stop him from throwing her wand to the older witch.

"Sirius!" Tonks cried out, as her cousin fell to his knees and then face first into the dirt. She saw the knife in his back and promptly dropped the wand she'd caught, pointing her own at it. "Reducto!"

Jadis drew another knife, preparing to hurl it, but instantly had to shield herself, as a bright light blinded her. The light had come from her wand, as Tonks' curse reduced it to blackened fragments, causing the magic within it to explode, blasting fragments of it to all around.

Jadis screamed in fury!

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"Hermione, we have to get out of here!" screamed Tonks.

"But she…!"

"I know, but remember the mission. We have to go now."

Hermione's lower lip trembled, but finally she nodded and pointed her wand at the dead redhead. "Accio!"

Something flew from the boy's pocket to her hand, and with a savage grin at Jadis, but with tears still pouring down her face, she pressed a button on what the ancient witch suddenly realized was a remote control. The effect was instantly apparent, as the sound of explosions rocked the castle.

Jadis had no time to react, as she was still partially blinded by the light of her wand's destruction. She was torn between merely capturing the two to find out what their plans were, to simply killing them and minimizing the damage they'd done.

She didn't have a chance, though, to do either, as another explosion, followed by several others near her, blasted her from her feet and knocked her into a courtyard wall.

Tonks and Hermione were still hurling spells at her that helped mask their retreat, as they fled beyond the wards. The moment they were safely beyond the walls, they activated the Portkeys and escaped.

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After the rebels had escaped, Jadis stood in the heart of her courtyard, searching the ground around her, taking no notice of the damage to her once proud palace, now quickly becoming a blazing ruin. She was clutching her wounded hand, now missing a few fingers, but paid it little heed.

"Your Majesty!" one of her soldiers saluted, as he hurried to her. "What happened?"

"Harry Potter and his resistance attacked," she replied quietly, her eyes not leaving the ground.

"Harry Potter? Surely he would not be so…" If the young wizard had not been so shocked at the news of Harry Potter attacking, he might have noticed the look of fury and desperation on his queen's face.

"CEASE YOUR WHINING, FOOL!" she yelled, grabbing the wizard's neck with her good hand. "GATHER YOUR FORCES AND GET THIS FIRE OUT!"

The wizard struggled for breath, as Jadis' grip choked him before she flung him, with her inexhaustible strength, clear across the courtyard. Despite all this, though, she didn't even look at him, her eyes still focused on the ground before she finally found what she had been looking for.

She practically threw herself down into the dirt and grabbed her ring, which had been bitten off by Sirius during their struggle. The moment the stone in it had lost contact with her skin she had felt all feelings of joy leave her body as though they had been drained, returning her to her former dark and coldly emotionless self.

She hurried to get the ring on one of her remaining fingers, her blood making them slippery. But the instant the ring slipped on, and its stone connected with her skin again, she felt that same rush of joy flow through her again.

The first time she had lost her joy, in Narnia, she had not even noticed it to begin with. Aslan's curse had drained her of her happiness, but it had been several days before she had even begun to notice that, since eating the forbidden fruit, she had not felt any joy. This time, however, she had realised it instantly. After over a thousand years of emptiness, the moment her joy returned had been like being filled with sunshine, warming her up. So when the stone had gone and that same hollow feeling had once more returned, she had noticed it immediately.

As she knelt in her courtyard, breathing in deeply, she finally took notice of her surroundings, her castle in flames while her guards hurried to extinguish them. She also noticed her once beautiful crystal wand, which had taken her months to construct, now blackened and shattered, rendered useless.

"A desperate act, Mr Potter," she spoke silently to herself, her thoughts enflamed with fury. "Are you really so eager to die? Or is there something else to your little game?"

She stood up and started making her way inside to get to her potions' lab, so that she could repair her hand and start constructing a new wand. She still had the wand she had purchased from Ollivanders' when she first came to this world. Pitiful as it was, it would do for now.

"If you wish to fight, Mr Potter, then so be it!" she swore aloud. "Maybe I should have had you eliminated long ago, but thankfully that is a mistake easily rectified!"

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**Thetford Forest, Undisclosed Location;**

**One Hour Later:**

Harry was numb, as he sat on the simple wooden chair in the old stone building. At one point, it had been a storage building used by park personnel, but thanks to a simple Muggle repelling charm, it was now the latest hideout of the Resistance; a Resistance that was shrinking by the day.

After he had recovered the Time-Turner, he had made his way out of Jadis' study and the tower, and escaped with the portkey he had created. Luckily for him, the gargoyle had not tried to stop him. It had returned to its original state, remaining still and unmoving. As he had suspected, Jadis must not have ever considered that someone might be able to get into her study and escape, and so the spell she had used to give the gargoyle life was designed only to work to keep people out. Since Harry had succeeded breaking in, the spell had instantly become null and void, leaving the gargoyle lifeless.

Apparently, the mission had been a complete success, as they had found their primary objective, the Time-Turner, and escaped. The bombs they had left and detonated in the castle had been for the express purpose of destroying Jadis' study, so she would never learn which of her talismans they had taken. The cost had been high, though.

"Ron…Sirius…" he said in a whisper.

"I know, Harry," said Hermione, as she rested a hand on his shoulder. After what was left of them had escaped Jadis' castle, and once they were sure they were safe for the time being, she had cried for nearly a whole hour. She had taken Ron's death hardest of all, and had only just recently come out of her room (or what was for the moment passing as her room).

They had long since lost what was left of Ron's family. The few still alive had stayed behind at one of their hideouts to help a few civilians, only having minor contact with Ron when they could. Their last message had been weeks ago, so Merlin knows whether they were okay or not.

"But remember what you were told," she said, though her words held none of the usual hope and enthusiasm that he had long since associated with her. It was obviously too soon, but she had no choice. Not while she was still needed. "If we succeed, none of this will have happened. It can all be undone."

Harry took a steadying breath and nodded. "What about the Time Turner?" he asked. "What does Ollivander say?"

"He's in the next room," Hermione nodded towards a closed door, "examining it and the amulet. He's not optimistic, but I'm sure he'll pull it off."

"If he doesn't, this was all for nothing," Harry noted glumly, and then shook his head. "Where do we stand?"

"Tonks, Neville and Susan are standing watch. We received word from Seamus, though. The safe house in Bala was discovered. He lost two cousins."

"Is he..?"

"Fine for now… Well, as fine as he can be. He's afraid he's being tracked, though, and he doesn't want to go near any of the other hideouts we've scouted out."

"What will he do?"

She shrugged. "Stay on the move, try to draw some attention away from us." She looked away, a pained expression crossing her face. "He probably won't last long alone."

"If he is being tracked, he won't risk coming here," Harry reasoned. "I-I…damn, I hate this! Any idea how long Ollivander will be? I'd like to end this."

"We all would, but he's only been working half an hour, and he said from the start that this isn't his area of expertise. We're going to need to be patient."

"Jadis will be searching for us, especially if she figures out what I took and why."

"How would she figure it out?" Hermione asked. "You pretty much cleaned out her study to keep her from guessing what you were specifically after." What he hadn't taken he'd hopelessly smashed in an effort to make the point of the mission seem like random theft and simple vandalism. With any luck, she would never realize the Time-Turner was missing.

"I wouldn't put anything past Jadis," Harry shook his head. "We dumped everything else I took in case some of it was traceable, but…we can't know for certain."

"We've sent lookouts and we've got other safe houses ready in case we need to bolt. That's all we can do. Now, it is just a matter of staying free long enough for Ollivander to finish his work."

Harry took a deep, calming breath. "I know. There's…nothing else we can do right now."

"It's not easy," Hermione sighed. "I wish there was something we could do, but we just have to sit tight and wait."

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Three very tense days passed, three days during which Ollivander did not sleep or eat, and drank only when reminded. He was red eyed and unsteady on his feet by the end of the third day, but he assured them he was close.

Jadis' forces found them on the fourth morning, in the hours before dawn. Their only warning came due to a mistake made by Amycus Carrow, or what used to be Amycus Carrow. The wolves, led by Fenrir himself, had approached without a sound. Two of the lookouts had been taken by surprise and died without a sound. Dennis Creevey, however, managed to scream.

"AMBUSH!" was the last word Dennis ever shouted.

Thankfully, the resistance had all prepared for this battle. They had done this many times now, and had had plenty of practice when their other safe-houses had been compromised.

Alerted to the attack, most of the Resistance members present prepared to fight, while Hermione and Ollivander carefully packed up his work, preparing to flee. A portkey had been arranged to take them to another safe house, but it had been necessary to alter the destination several times, as a farmhouse near Perth and an aging apartment building in Dublin had both been levelled since they had set up camp at their current location.

"Quick, Ollivander! Move quickly!" urged Hermione, as she packed all she could. The sounds of spell-fire, snarls and howls got closer and closer as they worked. There were screams as well, which they both tried hard to ignore and not think about.

Finally, all was ready. Not everything could be gathered up, but everything essential to the work was in hand. Hermione raised her wand, just as Harry crashed through the door.

"Tonks, move it! It's time to go!"

There was a roar from the front door of the building, and Harry turned to see Fenris Grayback himself charging them. "Avada Kedavra!" Tonks shouted, striking the werewolf in mid-leap. It did nothing to dispel the force behind the leap, however, and another wolf was right behind him, as Greyback's corpse slammed Tonks into the wall next to the door.

With a wave of her wand, she slammed the door, shutting Harry, Hermione and Ollivander in the back room. A shouted "Colloportus!" was followed immediately by a gurgling scream.

"Tonks!" Hermione started toward the door, but Harry grabbed her arm.

"Gone! Like the rest! We have to go now!"

Hermione took a steadying breath, but nodded and moved to stand next to Ollivander, and placed her hand on the portkey. Harry joined them, as she raised her wand. "Incendio!"

The Portkey whisked them away even as the room filled with fire, destroying all evidence of the work done there… They hoped.

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**Thetford Forest, Undisclosed Location;**

**One Hour Later:**

Jadis surveyed the building where some project had been underway. The Resistance was up to something, but thanks to her bumbling troops, she had no idea what. The wasted effort had also cost her the lives of three of her wolves, including Grayback, who had been rather useful.

At her gesture, one of the survivors of her forces was brought before her. "Carrow," she stated evenly, and the beast cowered at her tone. "As a human, you were an arrogant fool and unmitigated failure as a wizard. Your change in circumstances has not improved you, since your failure to take down a child silently has cost me my prey and the lives of three far more useful servants."

Carrow whined.

"Silence!" She pondered for a moment. "I will not waste my time, or dirty my hands killing you personally. You've proven yourself worthless even as sport. I will let the pack deal with you." She looked at Grayback's second, now the alpha of the pack, and gave a sharp nod toward Carrow before turning and walking into the building. The sounds of savage snarls followed quickly by an almost human scream trailed after her.

The fire had done a lot of damage, but there were fragments of paper and equipment left. Given time, she could probably reconstruct at least some of the material, but she suspected that time was not on her side. She needed to find the last of the Resistance quickly and put an end to whatever they were planning.

**To Be Continued…**


	11. Chapter 11

**The Final Battle**

**Part 2**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Church Basement; East County;**

**Five Days Later:**

"It's finished," Ollivander sighed, presenting Harry with the end product of his labours. Hermione had tried to assist, but he had waved her off, telling her that as fine a mind as she had, she didn't have anything resembling the knowledge or experience to attempt this type of work, and he did not have the time to teach her at the same time.

She had been trying her best to keep as busy as possible the last few days, which Harry suspected was due to her wanting to keep her mind off all the latest happenings, especially Ron's death.

"This is our best chance," continued Ollivander, "I've made a lot of educated guesses and gone on instinct more than I ever wanted to, but it's done."

"How does it work?" Harry asked.

"The magic of the amulet should resonate with the spot at which Jadis entered this world." Ollivander then looked thoughtful. "I still can't believe that Jadis is actually from another world! I mean, the idea of beings from other worlds sounds like something from muggle fiction or folktales. You never believe that…"

"Mr. Ollivander?" said Harry sternly, looking at him calmly. "The amulet?"

"Oh yes, sorry." Ollivander seemed to collect himself, as he continued. "It will work nowhere else, so you must use it at the spot Jadis came into our world, and… Now take note, Mr. Potter, because this is the most important part and you won't get a second chance. When the resonance is reached, twist the amulet as you would a Time Turner." He indicated the means. "It can only be done once and only in one location. If used anywhere else, the magic will be spent, and the amulet becomes useless."

"I'll be careful," Harry promised, taking the amulet with extreme care, and put it in the inside pocket of the jacket he was wearing.

The nondescript muggle clothing that he, Hermione and Ollivander now wore had proven a most effective disguise. Harry now sported short-cropped red hair, in honour of Ron, and contact lenses that made his eyes brown. Hermione had dyed her hair pale blonde, and managed to straighten it with considerable effort before securing it in a ponytail. Her eyes were now a muted blue. Neither looked anything like their normal selves, and, as not a touch of magic had been used, there were no charms to disrupt.

It was a new approach to disguising themselves, and the fact that they had gone five days without being found seemed to indicate that it was working. They had never determined precisely how Jadis was tracking their movements, so they would simply try different methods to throw her off the scent. For five days since arriving, they had used no magic. Even Ollivander had kept the charm work done on the amulet to a minimum, working with tools as much as possible.

Now it was time to act. Harry was eager enough to Apparate to the graveyard and cast the spell, but he couldn't, as Jadis had developed a new spell that could track all Apparitions. Some believed that the spell could actually kill anyone who dared to Apparate without Jadis' permission, but no one knew this for sure. In any case, Harry knew that none of them could take the chance. They had decided early on to travel by muggle means, once the amulet was finished, by blending in with the population, so as not to attract attention.

"Harry?" said Hermione, as she then walked in.

"The amulet's done, Hermione," he told her immediately. "We need to leave at once. Are the travel arrangements ready?"

She nodded. "Yes. We've all thought of a way that should help avoid detection. If you'll let me just have one thing?"

"What do you nee-OW!" Harry yelped, as Hermione then reached forward and plucked a few hairs from his head.

"Sorry," she said with a small smile. "But trust me, this is for the best."

As Harry looked on, he saw her produce a small bottle from her robe, which she unfastened the clasp on, and then sprinkled his hairs into. The moment she did, there was a low fizzing noise, and the mixture inside started to froth a little.

"Is that…?" he started to ask, sniffing at the vile smell.

"Wait," interrupted Hermione, and reached into her robe again, depositing the bottle inside, and then pulled out yet another bottle. "I'm gonna need a few more hairs from you."

He stared at her. "Exactly how much more?"

She fully opened her robe and pulled out four bottles altogether, including the one she had already done. "This much."

He blinked. "I'm gonna be bald when all this is done, you know."

Hermione scoffed, and reached for his hair again. "Don't exaggerate."

After she had plucked enough hair to go into each of the remaining bottles, she turned around to go back into the main room. "Come on. Everyone's here."

The 'everyone' that Hermione mentioned was but a mere six people, which included her, Harry, Ollivander, Stanley Shunpike, Hestia and Flora Carrow. They were all that was left of the resistance, which showed how desperate they were. Harry and Hermione were the only ones who had any real experience and talent in defence.

Ollivander was smart but no fighter. Stanley Shunpike was the former conductor of the Knight Bus, and had no real skill in battle or magic. After Jadis took over, she had disposed of the Knight Bus service, probably in case any of her enemies tried to use it to escape, leaving him destitute. He had joined the resistance simply because he had had nowhere else to go. Flora Carrow and her twin sister Hestia were former students of Hogwarts, in the same year as Harry and Hermione. They had been members of Slytherin, but like Bellatrix they had no respect for Jadis, especially since she had had their father executed for having rebellious thoughts about her. Although they were from a pureblood wizard family, they weren't that skilled in spells, but could hold their own in a fight.

"Everyone ready?" asked Hermione.

"Do we have a choice?" asked Flora, grimacing as Hermione held out the bottle to her.

"Makes me almost wish we were on Jadis' side," said Hestia, recognising the smell from the bottles. "If I had known we would have to drink…"

"Quit your whining!" snapped Hermione, as she forced a bottle into Hestia's hand, and began sharing the remaining bottles with the others. "Does everyone know where they're heading?"

"Heading where?" asked Harry.

"Okay, drink!" ordered Hermione, ignoring him for the moment.

Everyone except her and Harry took a breath, unfastened the clasp on each of their bottles, and took a gulp.

"Oh yuuuck!" Shunpike grimaced. "Polyjuice Potion! Haven't drunk this since I was at school. Tastes just as bad as I remembered!"

"Trust me, it's worse," replied Ollivander. Since joining the resistance, he had tasted more than his fair share of Polyjuice Potion, to hide from Jadis and her forces, before they had decided to quit using it.

The moment they swallowed, and fought the urge to heave it back up, Harry watched as all four of them started shivering and twitching, as their bodies went through the metamorphosis. Some shrank, some grew, their hair colour grew dark and longer, and some got flat in the chest. Before long, Harry found himself in a room with four other Harry Potters.

"Hermione?" he asked in bewilderment. "What is this? I thought we agreed to avoid using magic like Polyjuice to disguise ourselves anymore?"

"Yes, we had, Harry. But only because we were trying to avoid detection and that seemed the best way." She paused for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. "But if we are to succeed in this mission, we need Jadis' forces to actually see who they will believe is you. While Jadis and her people are going after what they believe to be you, it will give us a chance to…"

Harry's eyes widened. "You're going to use them as decoys?!"

"Jadis and her forces will be looking for you specifically, Harry," explained Hermione. "You are the leader of the resistance after all. Therefore, the best way for us to get you out of here and to that cemetery is for the rest of us to distract Jadis and her people while you get there!"

"Won't Jadis be able to see past their disguises?"

"First of all, we don't really know for sure if she can see past Polyjuice magic or not. But even if she can, I doubt she can do it unless she's there in person. And even if she does, we just need her to be distracted. The longer we can keep from getting caught and lead her and her people on a wild goose chase, the better. The longer she's distracted, the better the chance you have of getting to the cemetery."

"I can't…" Harry started, but then paused. His first instinct was to protest that others would risk their lives for him, but after so long fighting a never-ending and losing war with Jadis, and with so many lives lost already, he no longer had the strength. Looking at all of them with eyes full of grief, he said in a whisper, "You do realise what you're all doing here?"

"Playing decoy…" said the Harry that used to be Hestia.

"So that you can get to your secret spot, to travel back in time…" added Flora.

"To prevent Jadis from ever coming here from wherever she came from…" Ollivander replied.

"So that none of this will have ever happened," finished Hermione. "I already discussed it with them, Harry. They know what we are asking of them, and they know the risks."

"Speak for yourself," Stanley said, quivering slightly. "Personally, I wouldn't mind having a back-up plan, at least if Jadis' people catch us."

Hermione looked over at him, almost in pity. The way he said "if they catch us" proved that either he still didn't get it, or he didn't want to admit it. This was one mission that none of them were coming back from. Jadis would certainly find them, and if they escaped then that would be nothing short of a miracle beyond miracles. But the rest of them knew better. This was a suicide mission, nothing less.

"I'm sure if you run into trouble, you'll find a way out, Stanley," Hestia said snidely. "After all, if it's one thing you're good at, it's running and hiding!"

"Hey!"

"Just keep your wits about you and you'll be fine," supplied Hermione helpfully, and the way she said almost made Harry believe it, too.

Harry didn't want to send these people out to their deaths, but he knew there was no other choice. This was the resistance's final mission. They would succeed, and then Jadis, this world and everything she had done to it would never come to be. If they failed, they would have played their last card, and nowhere would be safe for them.

"Okay, let's just go over all of this again," Hermione said to all of them. "To those of you that don't know or don't remember, the effects of the Polyjuice Potion only last about an hour, so you need to take a swig once every hour to retain Harry's form. Each of these bottles should be enough to keep you going for at least a day or two."

Hermione then picked up a bag and handed it to Harry. "I packed you some stuff, so let's go." She looked back to the others. "I will be going with Harry, in case he falls into trouble and needs someone to give him a head start."

"Lucky you," muttered Flora, earning a sharp knock from her sister. "What? I meant at least they didn't have to drink this stuff!"

"We need to get going right away," replied Hermione. "We need to make every moment of the Polyjuice's magic last."

The one Harry that was Stanley Shunpike grinned. "Hey, you watch! When this is all over, we'll be drinking victory pints at the Hogs Head!"

The other Harrys moaned. "When this is over, assuming we win, we won't remember any of it, doofus!"

"Oh."

"We'll all be going in different directions. I assume you've all thought out your travel plans?"

They nodded.

"Good. We'll start off by traveling by muggle means, whether by walking, driving, bike-riding or whatever. Hell, steal a horse if you have to. Get yourselves seen so that we can fool Jadis into not learning where Harry really is, but be ready to make a break for it right after. You do have some brooms, so use those when you need to escape. After that, just do what you have to do to evade capture for as long as possible, and keep magic down to below a minimum. Understand?"

Again they all nodded solemnly.

"Okay, we should leave right away," she finished. "The sooner the better." She then paused, giving each of them a sad look, and then added quietly, "Good luck, everyone."

Everyone gave a sad look in reply, but said nothing, and just began gathering whatever possessions they had left, and heading out the front door.

Hermione then looked back to Harry. "Get your bag, Harry," she said, avoiding looking at any of the others. "It's time to go."

**To Be Continued…**


	12. Chapter 12

**The Final Battle**

**Part 3**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Two Days Later; Northern England:**

Harry stepped off the train, followed closely by Hermione, as they made their way across the train station to the exit. There weren't that many people around, as hardly anyone was taking public transportation nowadays, mainly because everyone was too frightened to even set foot outside their homes.

"We're almost there," said Hermione, as she hooked her arm with his, heading closer to the exit.

No sooner had she said this, though, than Harry suddenly caught and held his breath, as two of Jadis' police force stepped out from around the corner of the exit, stopping one of the passers, a middle aged man. They tossed him roughly to the side, banging him against the wall, as they frisked and waved their wands over him.

"What is this?! I haven't done anything wrong!" the man cried out, but who remained still as they continued their search of him.

"Keep quiet, muggle!" one of the guards snapped at him, and continued waving his wand. After a few moments, he lowered his wand and grabbed the man by his shoulder and practically threw him through the barrier. "All right, you're free to go," he added silently, smirking at the man who shivered understandably frightened who picked himself up from the ground and hurried away.

"Great. Checkpoints." said Harry, frowning.

"Keep calm," replied Hermione, though he could see her shivering beneath her coat, too. "Get ready to make a run for it."

Harry nodded, as he touched and held onto his wand under his coat, getting ready to fight. Although they were still using no magic to disguise themselves, the guards were clearly not just relying on magic, and could still recognise them with simple muggle detection techniques. The laptop computer that the other guard was using was proof of that, as he scrolled down the screen, gazing at each face that came his way.

Obviously, Jadis was having her people take no chances.

After the guards terrified a few innocents, they soon came to the last passenger in front of Harry and Hermione. Hermione's hand held tightly to Harry's, while her other one was on her wand. The passenger in front was an elderly woman with a walker, but that didn't inspire any pity in the guards, as they search and pushed her roughly. The poor woman looked scared to death.

Harry and Hermione both tightened their grips on their wands, readying themselves for what now seemed like an unavoidable fight. The guards finished their examination of the old woman and pushed her beyond the barrier. The only reason she didn't fall on her face was because she was still holding tightly onto her walker.

The first guard was about to look to Harry, who was expecting him to start shouting his name any second now, when suddenly…

"Hey, check it out!" the second guard remarked, almost making Harry nearly take out his wand and start cursing (literally). It was only thanks to Hermione, who put her hand on his, making him pause, that he didn't reveal himself to everyone there.

The guard's remark hadn't been directed at him, but at the overhead monitor, which was now broadcasting a live News coverage, with a photograph of Harry set in the top right corner of the screen. For the moment, everyone's attention as solely focused on the report.

"This is Rita Skeeter reporting," the voice of the ever obnoxious witch reporter spoke on the TV. She was one of the few people in this world whose life hadn't been totally turned upside down by all the chaos in the last few years. After Jadis had taken over, Rita had continued with her role as reporter, reporting all the live coverage from wherever she could (with Jadis' permission of course). She had even started reporting on muggle television, as well as in wizards' newspaper.

"Today at around 11AM, police guards apprehended a suspect who they believe to be resistance leader Harry Potter!" Rita's crisp voice continued. "The young man, originally known as The Boy Who Lived, was spotted in Cambridge. Police attempted to apprehend him, but he resisted, resulting in the police having to use force…"

Harry had to bite his lip at the last comment. If anything, the police (or Jadis' guards) were no doubt the ones who had used force first, as diplomacy wasn't their strong suit.

"The young man was killed during the arrest attempt. Police have yet to determine whether or not the man is definitely Harry Potter…"

Harry ground his teeth, as he briefly wondered which one of his decoys had lost their life, but he didn't have time for that now. Hermione hooked her arm through his, as the guards were busy watching the news report, giving them the chance to slip by unnoticed through the barrier and exit.

They hurried pass the guards, taking care not to alert them, and luckily the other passengers behind them had had the same idea, and were also hurrying to get by without the guards seizing them.

The moment they were past the barrier, Harry and Hermione broke into a short run, rushing to get by the nearest corner and out of the guards' line of sight.

"Who do you think it…?" he started to ask, but Hermione just raised her hand to silence him.

"Let's just hurry," she said, and the two of them left the station in silence, to begin looking for some other means of transportation.

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**Three Days Later; Little Hangleton:**

It had taken them another three days, but they were finally there. They had had to hide themselves in an abandoned cottage not long after leaving the train station, as Jadis' forces had spread out everywhere. They had had to wait a whole day before they could start travelling again, and the journey was a lot longer when one couldn't Apparate and lacked even a broom or car.

It was all due to the fact that, in addition to the one Harry Potter who had been killed in Cambridge, there had been two other Harry Potters seen. One had been spotted near Bristol. The police had tried unsuccessfully to apprehend him, but he had been able to avoid them by jumping into the sewers and disappearing. Police were currently searching the sewers system for him. The second Harry had been seen and killed in London while trying to escape.

Harry and Hermione had no clue which of the Harrys had been Stanley, Ollivander, Flora or Hestia, but it was pointless thinking of that now. The fourth Harry had yet to be seen, or if he/she had been then the news had yet to report it.

But they were finally there, which was the most important thing! Harry and Hermione could make out in the distance the twinkling lights of the village of Little Hangleton; ancestral home of both Voldemort's Muggle family the Riddles, and his Wizarding family the Gaunts, and the site of Jadis' much lamented arrival on their world.

"Finally," sighed Harry. "I thought we'd never get here."

"Yeah, but don't let your guard down, Harry," replied Hermione, whose eyes were forever alert for any sign of Jadis' forces. "The police are everywhere, and Jadis' soldiers haven't let up in days now."

"I know, I know." Harry sighed. Hermione's eyes were dark and heavy. He didn't believe she had truly rested in days now, not since Ron had died.

The sound of a car approaching halted their conversation then, as they quickly darted behind a hedge. With so much at stake, they couldn't take any chances now.

The car turned out to be a mail van, as it drove past them. There weren't that many people on the roads anymore, aside from deliveries and Jadis' forces. People were just too afraid to go out.

Once the van had passed them, Harry and Hermione slowly came out and walked on.

"Come on," said Hermione, as she walked beside Harry who held her arm, supporting her on him. Despite her determination, Harry could see how hard she was trying just to stay awake. "We're almost there."

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**Little Hangleton Graveyard:**

Dressed in dark hoods, Harry and Hermione slowly made their way up to the dark graveyard. It was on the other side of the village, and since they couldn't risk going in and being seen, they had had to walk right around the village's borders and up the valley to the hillside where the church and graveyard were located.

As they approached the stone wall surrounding the graveyard, Harry could make out the vast estate house that had belonged to the Riddles. The Riddles' house was huge and derelict, casting a shadow over the graveyard and the hill it was built upon. It had once been a fine manor, but had long since fallen into disrepair.

Looking at it, he remembered the haunting dreams he had once had of seeing Voldemort in his small, deformed body hiding out in the house with several of his followers, followed by the muggle caretaker that he had later killed.

Harry did his best not to tremble, as they entered the graveyard, as this was one place he had not been looking forward to seeing again. The last time he had been here had been the night of the last of the Goblet of Fire's trials, when he had been tricked into coming here and to be an unwilling participant in Voldemort's resurrection. It was also the night poor Cedric had lost his life.

Harry soon saw the huge angel of death statue that stood beside the grave of Voldemort's muggle family, with the towering marble headstone that listed their names, Thomas, Mary and Tom Riddle Sr. It stood near the centre of the graveyard.

The only consolation there was to be found in this place was that it was also the place where Voldemort had finally met his end.

"We're here!" whispered Hermione excitedly. "I thought we'd never make it!"

"Me neither. But let's not dwell on it anymore, and just get on with what…"

"Get on with what, Mr Potter?" a dark voice suddenly spoke up from the shadows, making the two of them freeze.

"No," Harry whispered below his breath, and hesitantly turned around, hoping against hope he was wrong about who the voice belonged to.

At first, he didn't see anyone, and he thought for one insane moment that maybe he and Hermione had imagined it, but then, as he looked over, he saw several gravestones nearby start to shimmer and grow, changing size and stature. Within a moment, those gravestones were gone, and Harry and Hermione found themselves surrounded by several dark wizards and the one person they dreaded

"Hello, Mr. Potter, Miss Granger," said Jadis, eyeing them with a cold smile. "We meet again at long last."

**To Be Continued…**


	13. Chapter 13

**The Final Battle**

**Part 4**

**Many thanks to Aesop for co-writing and editing this! **

**If you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy.**

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**Little Hangleton Graveyard:**

Harry and Hermione drew their wands and aimed them at the white witch, Hermione looking close to committing murder.

"How did you find us?" asked Harry, in the hope of distracting her long enough for them to formulate a plan.

"You have your friend, Mr Stanley Shunpike, to thank for that," she replied, her eerie smile never faltering. "My forces caught him near Birmingham and brought him to me. It didn't take long for me to get him to talk."

Harry hissed between his teeth, but didn't lower his wand, nor did he ask where Stanley was now, as he could guess. Jadis very rarely kept prisoners after all.

"He wouldn't tell me what it was you two were up to, though," she then said, her smile faltering for a second. "I must commend you. I never thought any of you would have the strength to take such drastic measures before."

"What do you mean?" said Harry, looking at her briefly in confusion, not noticing the cold look on Hermione's face. "What are you talking about?"

Jadis looked at him for a second, but then her red lips once more broke into that dark smile that he so despised. "Ah, I had a feeling it wouldn't be you."

"What? What wouldn't be me?!"

She looked past him and stared at Hermione, whose face at that moment was unreadable, and looked deep into her eyes. Hermione's expression was blank, and she tried to keep her thoughts that way, too.

"If it wasn't Mr Potter then it could only be you. But I must say, I had not thought even you would be capable of such extremes."

"Would someone tell me what the hell you're talking about?!" Harry hissed, his wand trembling in his hand.

Jadis looked up, her dark eyes peering deep into him, her smile wide and taunting. "As I said, my forces found your former comrade, Mr Shunpike, and succeeded in apprehending him. We questioned him, and learned where you two were planning to go, but before he could say anything further…he dropped dead."

"Dropped…?" Harry frowned. "What do you mean he 'dropped dead'? How does someone just drop dead?"

Jadis looked back to Hermione. "Shall I tell him, Miss Granger? Or will you have that pleasure?"

Harry couldn't help but sneak a glance back at Hermione, but his wand never wavered from Jadis and her forces. It was only then that he noticed her expression, dark and full of nothingness. "Hermione?"

She looked over to him finally. "We couldn't risk Jadis finding out. Everything depended on this, so I… I made the others take the Unbreakable Vow."

Harry stared at her, at first not believing what she had said. He knew what the Unbreakable Vow was of course, as Ron had once told him about it. His brothers, the twins Fred and George, had once tried to get him to make the vow when he was about five. Luckily for him, their father had come out and stopped them just in time, and gave the twins a sound spanking afterwards.

It was a magical vow that people swore with the use of magic. Anyone who dared to break an Unbreakable Vow would die instantly.

"You made them take the Vow?" Harry asked Hermione quietly.

"We couldn't risk anyone finding out. I acted as Bonder, and had them all swear that they wouldn't say anything about the plan, but… We were all in a hurry, and I guess I just neglected to have them all swear not to say where we were going."

"A rather large oversight on your part, Miss Granger. I'm disappointed. But the fact that you were willing to sacrifice your comrades in order to keep your secrets shows that there may be hope for you after all." Jadis' blood-red lips curled, and Harry resisted the urge to cast the Killing Curse right at her.

"In the end, we've all done far worse," he said. The Unbreakable Vow was but another to the long list of things he never would have imagined them doing before this war began.

Jadis sneered at him, and held up her hand. Harry couldn't help noticing that it once again had the full number of fingers, but that was no surprise. He had once lost all the bones in his arm, but Madam Pomfrey had been able to re-grow them due to a simple potion. Obviously Jadis could do no less.

She was also holding another wand, but this one was not her own. It was a simple wooden one, which she obviously must be using only as a temporary one for the time being.

"You and your ragtag team of resistance fighters have cost me a great deal, Mr Potter," said Jadis, glaring at him. "Because of you, I not only lost a good number of talismans, including my own wand, which will take me several months to re-create, but you also damaged most of my castle!"

He said nothing at first, and just replied her cold glare with one of his own. "You should be happy. I was hoping we'd burn down the entire place!"

She thinned her eyes. "Why exactly are you here, Mr Potter?"

"Sightseeing."

She moved her wand closer to him. "I won't ask again. What is your reason for being here?!" The other wizards of her police force also aimed their wands in his direction, but made no move until Jadis gave them her permission.

"Hermione and I came here to see if we could find a new place where to establish our headquarters. This area is out in the middle of nowhere, and that house over there is abandoned. It seemed the ideal place." He indicated the old Riddle mansion behind her.

Jadis, however, didn't look convinced, as she cocked an eyebrow at him. "You expect me to believe you travelled all the way out here just to find a new hiding place?"

"Where else is there? You've taken control of nearly every other place there... Urgh!" Harry choked, as he felt the air being crushed out of him, although no one was touching him.

Jadis had tipped her wand slightly up, and Harry felt himself rise up into the air, his throat feeling like it was being squeezed, like he was being hanged by an invisible noose.

"Harry!" screamed Hermione, but she still didn't lower her wand or take one of her eyes off Jadis and her forces.

"What are you planning?!" hissed Jadis, as she twirled her wand. Harry felt the invisible force on his throat tighten, but still he did not answer her.

"Tell me now or I will…!"

"Fiendfyre!" yelled Hermione, and instantly Harry felt a wave of hot air wash over him, followed by a swarm of flames. Jadis gasped in surprise and leaped back from the fire, and Harry instantly dropped back to the earth with a hard thump, but felt his throat loosen and the air return to his lungs.

"HARRY! MOVE!" Hermione twirled her wand, causing the flames around to swerve and grow until they formed a huge horse that immediately started to gallop across the ground, setting fire to everything in its path.

As the giant fire-horse galloped through the graveyard, Jadis' men leaped out of its way while Hermione ran to Harry to help him up. "We've got to get to the grave before…"

Before she could finish, a bright blue light sparked from behind the fire, and the flames were all suddenly extinguished, leaving Jadis standing in its wake, holding her wand up high.

"Did you really think to trick me with the same spell twice?" she said cockily to them, her red lips curved in a dangerous smile.

"Avada Kedavra!" Hermione and Harry both recited, striking their wands out at the white witch. Jadis, however, deflected the spell as she lifted and swung her wand around in an impressive display of twists and curves.

"Seize them!" she commanded her men, as they slowly got back to their feet. "Do not let them escape!"

Hermione quickly re-aimed her wand at Jadis' men while Harry kept his wand on Jadis. "Fiendfyre!" she said, recasting the same fire spell as before and watched as this time the flames took on the form of a giant wolf. The fiery beast snarled and ran forward, its red hot jaws snapping at the wizards as they screamed their last.

"Expelliarmus!" cried Harry, but Jadis was all too familiar with the disarming spell and easily deflected it.

"You should have stuck with the Killing Curse, Mr Potter. It would have been safer!" Jadis rolled away and immediately stood back up and aimed. "Avada Kedavra!"

"Stupefy!" Harry responded to her curse with a stunning spell. He had done this once before during his duel with Voldemort. The Stunning Spell, when cast at the same time as an opponent's Killing Curse, would basically slam into each other thus creating a block that would prevent either spell from reaching their intended targets, so neither would have any effect.

As with Voldemort, Harry's spell slammed into Jadis', and the two magics created a multi-coloured spectrum of red and green sparks that flew everywhere. The light display, however, did not last long, as Jadis leaped aside; taking her wand with her, which of course ended her spell. Harry, meanwhile, just re-aimed and continuing casting, "Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!" He didn't bother with the Killing Curse any more, as Jadis had proved it was no threat to her.

Jadis laughed, as she easily blocked his every stunner. "Do you intend to keep me up with this all night, Mr Potter? Surrender now and I might…"

"CONFRINGO!"

A shout from Hermione, and suddenly the Riddle family grave exploded into a hundred pieces behind Jadis, sending the witch queen flying forward onto the ground, as a large piece of marble struck the back of her head.

"Stupefy!" chanted Harry again, and the spell this time hit its mark without fail, and Jadis flew briefly into the air before crashing down into a few gravestones, shattering them beneath her.

"Harry, go!" yelled Hermione. When Harry turned to look at her briefly in confusion, he saw her eyes.

"Hermione, no. Come with me!"

"Just go!" she replied frantically. "I'll keep Jadis busy! Just get over there and get moving!"

"Hermione…?"

"Harry!" she said in a loud and sudden stern tone. "The mission is all that matters, remember?! You must go NOW!"

Harry stared at her, tears forming in his eyes, but finally he started to hurry over to what was now left of the Riddle family grave. As he raced over, though, a green light flashed behind him, causing him to glance back. Jadis had now apparently recovered, and was sending spells back at them, a murderous look in her eyes.

Hermione was still alive, but had also re-aimed her wand and was firing spell after spell wildly at the white witch, from Stunning Spells to Killing Curses. At that moment, Harry almost didn't recognise his oldest and now final remaining friend. The murderous look on her face was close to that of Jadis, and the fiery anger in her eyes was even stronger than that of Bellatrix Lestrange.

So engrossed was he in the sight of her, he almost forgot what it was he should be doing. Biting back the tears, he forced himself to start running back over to the grave's ruins. He just made it there when, suddenly, the sounds of battle ended, leaving an eerie silence around him.

"Stay where you are!" Jadis' icy voice snapped.

Harry froze where he was, and then slowly turned around. In truth, he didn't even know why he should feel surprise at Hermione's death, but nevertheless he felt the sharp stab of shock and grief in his heart when he turned and saw her body lying motionless at Jadis' feet.

"Don't look so surprised, Mr Potter," said Jadis almost smugly. "After all, I was learning killing curses long before your people even discovered speech. I know of death spells that go beyond anything you can conceive."

"Like the Deplorable Word!" said Harry, staring her hard in her eyes. He took what pleasure he could at the sight of her shocked face.

"How… Where did you hear that word from?!" she demanded.

"STUPEFY!" cried Harry, using her surprise against her. Jadis, however, was ready this time, and easily blocked his attack, but while she was busy blocking that it gave him enough time to grab at the Turner-Amulet around his neck.

"By the way!" he said finally, grabbing the Amulet and dangling it before him. "I have a message for you, Jadis!"

Jadis' eyes widened at the sight of the Amulet. Despite being shattered and then re-built with the parts of a Time-Turner, she recognised something of her own construct, as the talisman was built with the knowledge of her home-world and Narnia, which were unique to this world.

"Aslan sends his regards!" he finished, and gave a quick genuine smile at the sight of her face as it grew even more shocked. And with a quick movement of his finger, he flicked the Turner part of the Amulet.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" she screamed out, as she all but flung her wand at him, but by then it was too late. The moment she needed to cast that spell, was all the time needed for the Amulet's magic to take hold.

The second Harry turned the Amulet-Turner, the entire world around him disappeared, swirling around him in a kaleidoscope of sound and colour. He felt dizzy, as the world shifted and changed like different coloured waters poured together, until finally the swirling stopped…

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The moment the swirling finally ceased, Harry fell to his knees as the dizziness overwhelmed him, and a bright light blinded his eyes followed by a rush of unfamiliar sounds that suddenly roared around him, deafening him. It took him half a minute before his eyes could adjust to the new illumination, and his dizzy-spell passed.

It was really no wonder that Harry had been so overwhelmed, as only a few moments before he had been in a near deserted graveyard in the middle of the night, quiet and dark. He suddenly found himself on what appeared to be a battlefield, the sounds of clashing swords, roars and screams all around him, in the middle of a bright and sunny day.

Blinking rapidly, Harry tried to see what was going on. Gradually, his eyes adapted to the bright sunlight and he was able to see again, and not a moment too soon. Only a few seconds later, two huge Minotaurs with equally huge battle-axes flew through the air at him. Harry dove out of the way, as the great beasts came crashing down to earth with a deafening boom.

Breathing heavily, he looked around and saw a bald giant, wearing a dark gold tunic and wielding a massive club that he was even now swinging at various other creatures (Harry assumed it had been he who had thrown the two Minotaurs at him).

The giant soon had more beasts flying through the air, and Harry sought cover behind some large boulders. He hid between them, watching as an endless array of animals, both mythical and ordinary, some he recognised and others he had never even heard of, fought around him. Fortunately for him, they were all so busy fighting each other that none of them had even noticed him.

Harry soon had his breath under control, but kept his head down. He was not here to participate in the battle, but to prevent Jadis from coming to his world.

As he looked down to his chest, he saw the remains of the Amulet-Turner still hanging around his neck, but it looked as though it had been thrown in a furnace and melted. It was now charred and black, any chance of repair now lost beyond hope, just as Ollivander had warned. Its magic would only work once, and once that was spent then it would never work again.

Forgetting about the Turner, he stared at the chaos around him. A Centaur fought with its sword against a Minotaur and his battle-axe, a warthog with its tusks in a dwarf's leg, some kind of goat-man against something that looked like a cross between a goblin and a house-elf, and a white tiger that was wrestling with a bear. He watched all these and many others until finally he saw her…

Jadis, clad in strange armour, stood off to the side, in combat with another soldier. She wore what looked like a skirt made of chainmail, with leather armour, a long mane of golden fur that hung from her neck, and an odd sort of gold headdress with multiple spikes that sat in her hair. She had two swords in her hands, as she brandished them at her opponent.

As Harry peered closer, he saw to his surprise that her opponent was no more than a boy, even younger than he. He, too, was dressed in armour, though his was a more traditional fashion, like the armours he had seen in British museums. He wore a red tunic with it, which had a gold rim and the picture of a gold lion stitched into it.

The boy fought against Jadis with a sword and a silver shield, and while his skills were impressive for a boy his age, Harry could tell right away that he could never hope to beat her, as her skills dwarfed his. She slammed him down and waited for him to get up, only so that she could toy with him further by stabbing her swords forward in a scissor-type angle, thereby nearly slicing his head off. He survived only by the skim of his teeth, as he bent backwards, narrowly missing the blades.

She continued edging him on for another few moments when, suddenly, a loud roar echoed throughout the whole battlefield. More than a few of the battling creatures paused at the sound, including Jadis and the boy who looked up in wonder, and when they did their expressions turned to shock, disbelief and terror.

Even Jadis, who Harry had only seen shocked a few times in his life, stood with her mouth gaping open, like she had just seen a ghost.

Harry looked over to where everyone was staring, and what he saw made him understand what had suddenly made them so fearful. The thing that had made the roar was nothing less than the largest and most terrifying looking lion that he had ever seen before in his entire life. It was huge, and gave a roar louder than even the dragons during the Triwizard Tournament.

But as he looked at it, Harry could not help but feel a sense of familiarity about the beast, like he had seen it somewhere before. It was terrifying, yes, but at the same time it was also magnificent and beautiful. Plus, it was not the only thing the witch and her forces had to fear, as right behind it was yet another army (reinforcements he assumed) of even more beasts and animals that charged forward.

Pretty soon, most of the witch's army were either fleeing in terror or looking close to surrendering. The only exceptions were the Minotaurs who had yet to stop fighting, as they continued battling their opponents fiercely. Harry could not help but notice that while the Minotaur's fronts were all heavily armoured, their rear ends were bare, leaving them practically defenceless.

Harry tore his eyes away from them and the great lion then and focused his attention back on Jadis, and he did it none too soon. For it was at that moment that Harry noticed something else about her garments. Hanging from her neck, glittering in the sunlight, was the amulet.

It was obviously nothing like the blackened one now hanging around his neck, for it didn't have the Time-Turner connected to it. It was gold and medallion-like, with some images engraved on it, and a crystal in its centre.

Jadis had just struck the boy down again, which seemed to set the lion bearing down on her. It charged at her on its mighty paws, its jaws agape and roaring. She seemed to tear her sight away from the fallen boy and turned back to watch the lion as it raced toward her.

In that moment, Harry could almost see what was happening before it had even occurred. Although he couldn't see her eyes from this distance and angle, he could sense they must be filled with fear, desperation…and planning; a plan for an escape. And there was only one method of escape opened to her; one that Harry knew all too well.

In the span of a few seconds, Jadis seemed to reach a conclusion and reached with her hand up to the amulet around her neck. At the same time, Harry grabbed and pointed his wand at the armoured Witch who would bring endless grief to him and his whole world. He aimed his wand at her and screamed the needed incantation…

"ACCIO!"

In one split second; as Jadis' hand just reached the amulet, it tore itself right off the chain around her neck and went zooming through the air, where it flew straight into Harry's reached out open hand. Jadis had no time to even look shocked or surprised at the theft of her talisman, before the huge lion then flung itself on her, throwing her behind some rocks, beyond Harry's sight.

Harry stood there for a moment, eyeing the amulet in the palm of his hand. He turned it over in his hand twice, observing the strange symbols, before he then simply dropped it to the ground. Then, with a heavy stomp of his foot, he ended the amulet's existence once and for all.

There was a brief flash of light, as he stamped his foot on the cursed talisman, crushing it beneath him. Its crystal fragments shattered, and then, on a final note of assurance, Harry spoke the Blasting Curse, exploding what was left of the amulet into oblivion.

Harry felt lightheaded, as he peered down at the destroyed artefact. At first, he thought it was from sheer elation at having finally achieved his objective, by going back and destroying Jadis' only means of escape from this battle, but as he raised his head, he felt as though he was floating on mid-air. And as his head was raised his eyes looked back to where Jadis had last been standing, and for a brief second they met with the eyes of the armoured boy he had seen Jadis duelling.

For one scattering moment their eyes met, and then…

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Peter Pevensie, formerly of Finchley, now Sir Peter Wolf's-Bane, Knight and future King of Narnia, stood watching. He could do nothing else, as time seemed to slow down around him. The battle seemed strangely distant and unreal, and the only things that existed now were he and the beings in front of him.

Aslan had somehow miraculously returned from the dead, surprising everyone, the Witch most of all. When all had seemed lost, Peter had watched him charging ahead of an army of reinforcements, securing victory for their side against impossible odds. He had felt elation upon seeing him return, with joy so great that he wanted to weep, along with love and gratitude, but now although he still felt those many emotions within him, there was now a darker one, fear.

The fear was not of the Witch, as before, but of Aslan himself. Peter could not help but feel it, as he stood by, watching the great lion devour Jadis right before his eyes. As he did, he remembered Mr Beaver's words when he had described Aslan to him and his siblings, "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Never before had truer words been spoken; Peter realised that now. Yes, Aslan was the embodiment of all that was good; of that Peter was certain. But safe he most definitely was not, especially to those who threatened him.

For a moment, Peter's eyes turned away from the gruesome scene, and when they did they caught sight of something else…

"Wha…?" he started to say, as he looked over to a group of boulders, but before he could finish saying the word it was gone.

It had lasted only for a split second; one second it was there, the next it wasn't. But to his last day, Peter was sure he had seen what looked like a human boy in large glasses looking right back at him. It was nobody he knew, and he didn't even know anybody his age who wore glasses, but the boy had been staring at him right before he had faded away into nothing.

Peter stood there for the next couple of minutes, staring at the place where he thought he had seen the stranger, almost expecting him to re-materialise. But the more he thought about it, the more absurd it sounded to him. After all, he and his siblings were the only humans in Narnia. Mr Beaver had told them so; a belief enforced by the fact that whenever a Narnian saw them, they reacted with amazement and wonder.

When he looked back to Aslan, he saw him as he stood up and walked further towards him. "It is finished," said the great lion with a tone of finality.

Peter had wanted to mention to him what he had seen, but before he could his sisters, Susan and Lucy, called out from behind him, and he turned to see them rushing towards him. His relief at seeing them alive and unharmed was so great that he momentarily forgot about the boy, and after they had seen to Edmund and saved his life, everything else seemed unimportant.

In the end, he came to accept that what he had seen had been nothing more than a trick of the light. He had been in the middle of a battlefield after all, and he had heard of soldiers back home hallucinating when under constant fire and faced with the chance of imminent death. Perhaps this had been one of those?

Eventually, Peter came to forget about what he had seen that day, and any time when he did remember, he remembered it as though he were remembering a dream.

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Harry's eyes met with the armoured boys', and he couldn't help smiling as they did.

'We won,' he thought, as though the boy could hear him. As he did, the scenery around him started to fade into a kaleidoscope of colour and sound, as it did when he had first come to this world.

Harry did not break eye contact with the other boy, but if he had done then he would have seen his hands and the rest of his body fading away. But he did not, nor did he even think to look.

'We won, Hermione,' he thought. 'We won, Ron. We won, Professor Dumbledore.'

He kept repeating those words to every person who had ever meant anything to him, in his mind as though they were a sweet melody, as a wave of sound and colour overcame him, bringing him peace. Jadis was dead, and her amulet destroyed before she could use it!

'We won, Sirius. We won, Tonks."

The boy slowly faded from his sight, as the light washed over him.

"We won, Fred. We won, George. We won…'

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**Hogwarts; Two Years Ago:**

… "Harry!"

"Mm?" Harry blinked the sparkle of colours that were flickering in his eyes, as Ron nudged him sharply. "Wha…?"

"Pay attention, will ya? Dumbledore's talking."

Harry shook his head slightly, and looked up. Dumbledore was in the middle of his start of year speech.

It was the beginning of their fifth year at Hogwarts, and so far the year had not gone off to a great start. So far, he and his cousin Dudley had been attacked by Dementors, resulting in Harry having to use magic outside of Hogwarts, which nearly got him expelled, Minister Fudge now had it out for him just because he refused to believe Harry's account that Voldemort was back, and now it looked like he had sent one of his people to the school for some reason.

The person in question was Dolores Umbridge, the Ministry's undersecretary and now apparent new Defence of the Dark Arts teacher. She had a broad, flabby face, with a wide, slack mouth. She was also wearing a fluffy pink cardigan and a black velvet bow on top of her head, which reminded Harry forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad.

"Are you okay, Harry?" asked Hermione who was looking at him worriedly. "You seemed a bit out of place just now?"

"I'm fine," he replied. "Just zonked out for a second." The colours were now gone, leaving Harry with clear eyesight, so he just attributed them to a lack of sleep. Those dreams about the dark mansion, the snake and the murdered man were a constant torment.

"Hem, hem," Umbridge suddenly interrupted, as though clearing her throat. It was clear she wanted to speak, and had gone so far as to interrupt Dumbledore in his speech. The headmaster looked taken aback for a moment, but then he sat down and politely allowed her to speak.

"Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome," said Umbridge in a simpering voice.

The rest of the school were a lot more surprised at the short woman's interruption than Dumbledore, as no one had ever interrupted one his speeches before, but Harry paid them no mind. As he listened to Umbridge's debut speech, as it were, he was struck by an odd feeling.

The woman was addressing all of the students as though they were only five years old, and then proceeded to talk about things like how the Ministry valued their education, and how there would be changes, some for the better. He also couldn't help but notice that somewhere in her words it sounded like she was badmouthing Dumbledore, but without actually saying it.

After she was finished talking, Hermione commented on how illuminating her speech had been.

"You're not telling me you enjoyed it?" said Ron. "That was the dullest speech I've ever heard, and I grew up with Percy."

"I said illuminating, not enjoyable."

Hermione then went on to say that she suspected the Ministry was planning to interfere with Hogwarts, but Harry did not pay much attention. He didn't know why, but he had a most odd feeling of relief while looking at Umbridge, as though he was almost glad she was there.

Harry had a sneaking suspicion that Umbridge was bound to cause trouble at Hogwarts for them all, and the feeling of revulsion he got from looking at her didn't help matters much either, but he felt relieved at seeing her there at the head of the Great Hall. He couldn't explain it, but he just felt like they had all just had a narrow escape.

Looking at Umbridge as she sat there, he got a feeling of déjà vu, as though he had gone through this before, but with someone else sitting in Umbridge's place.

He didn't know why, but with Umbridge he felt more…hopeful, as though they had a better chance with her than with someone else, though who that someone else was he had no idea.

After a while, he put it out of his mind and listened to Hermione and Ron as they talked about the Ministry and Hogwarts, until the rest of the school started to get up to leave. Obviously, Dumbledore had just finished his speech and dismissed everyone.

"Ron, we're supposed to show the first-years where to go!" said Hermione, as she jumped up, looking flustered.

"Oh yeah," said Ron, who had obviously forgotten. "Hey – hey, you lot! Midgets!"

"Ron!"

As Hermione rebuked Ron, Harry felt another strange wave of relief, happiness and contentment wash over him. And as he reached up to wipe at his face, he found to his surprise, a tear.

For no apparent reason, Harry had started to cry, and for the rest of his days, up to the end of his life, he had no idea why.

**The End! **


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